let's pretend the fog has lifted
by anthrop
Summary: If anything good could be said of his time spent under Freakshow, he's at least learned how to be patient. (Sequel to Wash Away the Darkest Days.)
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Please go read _wash away the darkest days_ before you set your teeth into this fic! Otherwise you'll be at a serious disadvantage and that's just no fun at all._

_Those who know this 'verse, welcome back! I hope you took a gander at the second chapter of _wash away the darkest days. _It's not necessary to read before jumping into this, but I think a fair number of folk who like that fic will appreciate the glimpse into Danny's POV._

_Whether or not you've never read part one of this series, let me say this now. This is a deadfic. Everything here was roughed out in 2015 and tidied up in 2019 in the interest of sharing after I did a little poll over on my Tumblr (anthropwashere) to see if anybody would want to see where I once wanted to go with this. You can expect 16 proper chapters followed by a meandering outline (wherein I try and piece together What The Hell past!me was aiming for, as the outline I've got is Shit Tier), and a writing playlist. I hope you all enjoy what I have of this 'verse as I enjoyed the hell out of writing it in the first place, not to mention tidying it up years later!_

_Title-wise, as is my wont and weakness for naming fic after songs, you can thank The Mountain Goats' "Dilaudid" for this. Extremely close competitors were Mother Mother's "Reaper Man" and the Editors' "Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool". Especially the latter. Just check out that music video! Friggin' oof, y'all._

* * *

Maddie bites back a groan as Jack takes the last turn home too sharply. She hears the RV's treads grind across the asphalt and a car horn blare. Her hand instinctively jumps to her aching side; no broken ribs, thankfully, but she still took quite a hit from Skulker. She'll be sore for a few days and bruised for longer, but it's fine. She's had worse. They both have.

"Sorry about that," Jack says, throwing her an apologetic smile as he lines the RV up along the curb outside FentonWorks. She waves his concern aside, schooling her grimace into a tight smile. But he isn't fooled one bit, hurrying to help her despite her protests. He neatly scoops her out of the passenger seat and deposits her gently at the front door in a few long strides. "You just set yourself down on the couch and leave all the heavy lifting to me for tonight, alright? I'll get this gear sorted out quick as a whip and then we can see about dinner."

"Jack, I can at least help with the—"

"I won't hear of it!" He interrupts with a grin. "Go _on,_ Mads, I've got it."

"Oh, for—" She swats his arm, laughing. "Twist my arm, why don't you?"

He presses a kiss to her temple and the keys into her gloved hand before jogging back to the RV with its blinking payload of containment units and spent weaponry. Maddie shakes her head fondly, letting herself in.

It's pitch-black in the house. They hadn't expected to be out so late when they'd gotten called out. Or the second and third call that came down _while _they were out, for that matter. They really ought to know better by now. Ghost hunting is a 24/7 ob. A few years ago it had seemed so much simpler, so much _easier _despite the chaos and property damage, but then a few years ago there had been—

No. Stop.

She shuts away her grief and limps to the kitchen, flicking light switches on as she goes. The porch, the basement stairway, the upstairs hall, the kitchen. Warm yellows and harsh whites that leave her blinking away spots. She's tempted to pull her hood back on, but one of the lenses is badly cracked. No sense to risk getting glass in her eye over a moment's discomfort.

From the freezer she pulls out one of the many ice packs they've collected over the years; a fat oval full of pink gel that's a perfect fit for her aching side. She drops it on the counter, fetching a glass of water and a handful of ibuprofen form the big bottle by the coffee pot. The bottle's nearly empty, she notes absently. They'll need to buy more the next time they make it to the grocery store. She swallows the pills, downs the water, then unzips her jumpsuit to the waist and looping its sleeves in a loose knot at her sips so they won't dangle. She doesn't bother untucking her sweat-sticky tank top, slapping the ice pack to her side. She hisses relief through her teeth, sagging against the counter.

Still, she can hear the siren call of the couch. Kicking her boots off and putting her sore feet up sounds like step one of a brilliant plan. She limps out of the kitchen, not bothering to kill the light. Jack will surely start foraging in there as soon as he's finished downstairs. Speaking of, she hears movement at the foot of the basement stairs and what is certainly not a breathless rush of pained curses. "Jack? Are you sure you don't need a hand?"

_"No!"_ Immediately there's a hazardous-sounding crash. The floor shakes underfoot. _"Everything's fine, don't worry!"_

She laughs, wincing through the jolt of pain it rewards her. Whatever broke she'll be mad about in the morning. Right now she's exhausted. All she wants is a hot shower, something to calm the gnawing in her stomach, and a minimum of eight uninterrupted hours of sleep. She'll settle on the couch for now.

But someone else is already there.

She freezes in the entryway. Striped by the orange streetlight spilling in through the blinds she can just make out the silhouette of someone with short, flyaway hair and broad shoulders. For all the lights she turned on the living room is still in shadow. She drops her hand from the ice pack, drawing an ectotaser and switching it on in one smooth motion. Neon green crackles between its prongs as the ice pack slouches into the folds of her jumpsuit. The silhouette doesn't move. A burglar? A ghost?

She barks out, "Who's there?"

The silhouette stiffens. "Uh," it says. Masculine voice. Young. A teenager, most likely. Or at least a convincing approximation of one.

"Step away from the couch with your hands up _and _empty, buster, or I'll be forced to take the defensive measures I normally reserve for the malevolent specters that haunt this fair city!"

_"Whoa,_ whoa, whoa, stop." The couch creaks as the silhouette hastily complies with her order. "Mom, it's _me."_

He—

She misheard.

Surely she's imagining it. This voice, the familiarity of it—it's her imagination. She has to swallow before speaking anyway to keep the tremble out of her words. "I beg your pardon?"

"It's me. It's Danny."

Very, very carefully, Maddie takes three sidesteps over to the end table and its cheerful little lamp. Her hand bumps the light shade, fumbles for the switch. Warm yellow light spills across the living room. She swallows again, taking in the details of this—this intruder—now that she can see him. She takes in scruffy black hair. The stretched-tight features of someone who's missed too many meals. Skin with a sickly, almost grayish, pallor. White scars across his lip, jaw, temple. Multiple piercings glittering in his ears. Reflective sunglasses. A studded leather jacket, well-worn. A plain black hoodie, faded. Skinny black jeans, torn at the knees. Black combat boots, unlaced and badly scuffed. A black backpack set by the couch, held together with duct tape.

At a glance this—this _boy _looks like somebody who fell down past desperate a long while back. Three years. Three years. She scarcely recognizes him, but who else could he be?

_"Danny,"_ she breathes out. An afterthought pockets the ectotaser before she rushes him, her aching side forgotten. She barks one shin against the coffee table but can't care a whit because this is her _boy, _her _son,_ home at _last._ She hugs him and _does not let go._ Danny flinches, a gasp hissing through his teeth. But he relaxes by inches, by centimeters, enough to press his cold hands to her back. Oh, oh, she can feel him _shaking _against her. He's freezing. He's so cold under all those black layers but she can feel his pulse racing in his neck against her cheek. He's here. He's home. He's _alive. _This is _real. _Maddie's face is hot with unshed tears as she says, over and over again, "Oh Danny, my Danny, you're _here, _you're _home,_ I missed you so much, oh my baby, it's _you."_

"I missed you too," he whispers in her ear. His breath, at least, is warm.

"What'd you say, hun?" Jack asks as he crests the basement stairs. Maddie hears his breath hitch, his footsteps freeze. "Who—is that—my god. Is that—_Danny?"_

"Hi, Dad."

"I—you. _Ha._ You're home. You're—_Danny!"_ And then Jack is there, all but kicking the coffee table aside and smothering them both with his big arms and warm weight. Danny's knees buckle just before her own do, and they all fall in a heap to the couch.

For a while there aren't any words, not really. Maddie doesn't know how long they sit on the couch just holding each other. Cradling each another. Shaking in each other's arms. Telling each other "I'm sorry," and "I missed you," and "I love you," so many times the words stop meaning anything. Three years is so long. Three years is forever. She wants to hold Danny tight and never let go again.

Eventually, however, they quiet. They calm. Eventually Maddie can let go and not fear she'll wake up. How many times can a mother dream of this exact moment? How many times can bleak disappointment outweigh the glad reality she's now faced with? She sits back to get a good look at her boy, remembering too late her bruised side. Danny's face twists at the pained noise that escapes her.

"Mom? Oh god, are you okay?" His hand finds her knees, squeezing it almost painfully. Even through her jumpsuit he's still shockingly cold.

"I'm fine," she insists at the same time Jack says, "She took a bad hit today." That only makes Danny's face twist more. She shoots Jack a dirty look. His own face is a soggy mess but he still manages to raise his eyebrows as if to ask, _Am I wrong?_

"It's just a bad bruise, sweetie," she says. "Don't worry about me."

"But—"

She plucks his sunglasses off his face to hush him. She doesn't want him to worry. She just wants to see him, here and _alive,_ every inch of him safe and sound. He flinches, ducking his head as she sets them aside. He curls his hands in his lap and hunches his shoulders as if he—as if—

"Oh, sweetie," she says, dismayed.

She remembers that guilty, wincing expression. When he was little, in that nebulous time between diapers and kindergarten, when she would catch him being naughty. Broken toys and pilfered cookies. Little things. Learning things. The look he'd get when she'd scold him back then is the same as how he looks now. He looks like he expects to be punished. He looks like he knows he's the reason she's upset and now the world is ending for it. He looks like he expects them to hurt him for—what? For leaving? For coming back?

He looks _shattered._

"I'm sorry," he blurts. "Oh, Christ. I—I'm so sorry. I never wanted to leave, but I couldn't stop him. I couldn't _fight _it—"

"Shh," Jack interrupts, pressing one huge hand atop Danny's choppy hair. "Hush, Danno, hush now. It's alright. You're home now. That's all that matters."

But Danny shies away from his touch, the misery in his face only deepening. "No. No, it's—please. I—I have to tell you the truth. Something I should've told you years ago. I should've told you right after it happened, I _know _I should've, but I was—I was _scared. _I'm sorry."

Over his bowed head she and Jack share a meaningful look. Carefully, carefully, Maddie presses her fingertips to Danny's shoulder. He flinches anyway. "It's okay," she tells him. "We know."

"You—you do?" He looks up briefly, shock stretching his gaunt features. Maddie can just make out blurry white smears around his eyes, startling pale even against his sickly color. Maybe it's just how the lamplight touches the bruised, sleepless skin. He looks like he hasn't had a good night's sleep in—in ages. But he ducks his head again before she can get a better look, hunching tightly again like he can't bear to meet their eyes. "How... how did you...?"

"Sam and Tucker told us," Jack replies gently. "About a month after you went missing."

"I... oh."

"Sweetie, it's alright," Maddie says quickly. "We love you. We always have and nothing could ever change that. Not even you being half ghost."

A harsh bark of noise, more a sob than laughter, hiccups out of him. He presses a hand to his face, swallowing the hideous noise. "Yeah. Yeah. Okay."

Maddie and Jack share another look. How much do they press him? How much do they demand of him? Three years. _Three years. _They need to know, but is now the time to ask the how and why? Jack nods, and that's enough for her. "Danny boy," he asks, smoothing his hand down Danny's tensely curled spine. "Where—what _happened?"_

"I—" Danny shudders, pulls away from their touch and off the couch entirely. He finds the coffee table and folds himself up on it without once raising his gaze from the carpet. He takes one shaky breath, then another, then slots his fingers together so tightly his knuckles burn white. Now that Maddie can see his hands she can't _help _but see the damage done to them. One pinkie is a joint too short, the thumb on the same hand half the width it should be. A wounded, miserable noise escapes her, but he recoils when she tries to touch him.

"Please," he begs. So she stops. Retreats. Gives him the space she can hardly bear to give. She and Jack wait, scarcely breathing, for Danny to speak. He looks so swallowed up, so _small,_ in all that bulky black clothing. He's her son, he's _their _son, but he looks like a stranger still.

Danny's throat clicks when he swallows. "Do... do you remember the circus that came through town a few years ago? And the ghost robberies that—that Phantom—that _I—_was a part of?"

"Well sure," Jack answers. "But we know that wasn't your fault. Sam and Tucker told us all about how that Freakshow fella controlled... you..."

Oh, god.

"Danny," Maddie whispers weakly. His reluctant nod is all the answer she never wanted.

"Yeah," he says. "I broke the staff he used to control ghosts back then, but he—he found another way to control me."

She covers her mouth to hide the furious twist of her lips. Sam and Tucker had guessed as much, but there'd never been any proof. There'd been nothing. No calling card, no ransom, no threats. All they had to go on was a confirmed prison break for one Frederich Isak Showenhower, one witness to the fight that had left Phantom—Danny—a limp body in the arms of a red-cloaked ghost Sam had identified as Lydia, and one grainy recording filmed by another high school freshman who had admitted he'd been there trying to play a prank on the ghost kid. There hadn't been _enough _to go on. After that night Danny had vanished without a trace. The man calling himself Freakshow had never once made an appearance or tried to contact them at all. She swallows again. "That—that man. He kidnapped you?"

"Yeah. He—he wasn't real pleased with how I got him arrested." Danny bites his uninjured thumb, his grin unnatural and cruel. "He wanted revenge. I'd say he got more than enough of that."

"All this time," Jack murmurs. "Oh, Danny, I'm sorry. We' looked. We did, I swear—"

"Nearly," Danny corrects. "I've been free, mm, three months now? Ish? I would've come home sooner, but—" He laughs. "I was pretty messed up. It's a good thing I'm so sturdy, else I probably shoulda been hospitalized."

"Hospitalized?" Maddie and Jack echo.

"Yeah." Another laugh, as colorless as the first. "But that would've raised way more questions than any of us wanted to answer."

"What did he do to you?" Jack asks before she can.

"He didn't, like, torture me or anything," Danny says quickly. Too quickly? Maddie isn't sure. She's not sure she _wants _to be sure. "I mean, I know I look pretty bad, but that—this wasn't _him. _Not really. It's from working. At the circuses and with animals and stuff. He was getting revenge on Phantom, not on me. He never knew I was half human, that's all."

"How did he—" Jack breaks off with a grimace. "No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't—"

"It's okay." Danny holds up his left hand, the one with pieces of his fingers missing. It hurts to look at. It wounds to wonder how he was hurt. "I want to tell you guys. I do. I _want _to tell you everything. You deserve to know. It's just—I didn't..." He drops his hands, knots them in his lap. Joints pop, too loudly in the ringing silence. "This is a lot harder than I thought it'd be."

"It's okay," Maddie assures him. "It's late. We can talk about it all in the morning, if you like."

"Is it?" He twists to toss a glance at the wall clock by the bookshelf. "Damn, yeah. I guess it is. You guys must be exhausted. Long day of ghost hunting?"

"Oh you betcha," Jack says eagerly. "I tell ya, Danny, it's like these ghosts don't know how to take, 'get outta my town or I'll raze ya down to your plasmid byproducts' for an answer!"

_"Jack!" _Maddie exclaims.

"Uh—I mean—" Jack chuckles feebly. "It's, ah, just a figure of speech. We don't actually _raze _ghosts. Not anymore."

Danny smiles. "Okay, Dad."

"Honest, we—"

Danny stands up—_floats _up, right over the coffee table, landing gently on the far side of it. Jack gasps, an astonished grin chasing away his guilt. Danny shoves his hands into his pockets, shoulders hunched up to his glittering ears, still refusing to look them in the eye. She thinks of how much he flinched every time they touched him. He asks, "Guess I'll take the couch, yeah?"

"What? No! Nonsense!" Jack bounds up, trips over the black backpack and hastily picks it up by one strap. "You—you've still got your room, Danno. We kept it just about as you, uh, um, as you left it. Once the cops went through it top to bottom we made sure it was all back to rights!"

Danny tenses; his knuckles burn white and the cords in his neck stand out taut as steel cables. "The police?" His voice is suddenly thin with a high, trembling not of fear. Oh god, Maddie thinks, standing as well. What did that monster make him do to make him fear the police so badly?

"It's alright," she says. "We opened an investigation after—after you went missing. They were just doing their job."

"That's right," Jack says, holding out Danny's backpack. Danny doesn't take it.

"Where are my sunglasses?"

What does it matter? Maddie doesn't ask that, though she wants to. Danny reminds her too much of a deer right now, tense and wide-eyed, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble. She won't push him any more tonight. "Here," she says, plucking the sunglasses from where she'd set them on the coffee table and holding them out.

Danny doesn't take them. Instead he pops his tongue; a loud and jarring burst of noise that makes her and Jack both jump. Only after does he take his sunglasses from her and his backpack from Jack, slipping them both on without explanation or apology. "Lead the way," he says.

Maddie—Maddie leads. She doesn't want to. It's nearly a physical pain to take her eyes off her boy, as sharp and aching as her bruised ribs. On the second floor landing she asks—she _has _to ask, "Do you need anything? Have you eaten? Extra blankets?"

Danny chuckles. "I'm okay. Honest. You're the one who ought to take it easy." He holds out his right hand, the palm of it dark and lumpy—a spider web of scar tissue, and how on earth could he have gotten _that?_ Maddie hesitates, but forces herself to grasp his outstretched hand. His calluses are as rough as sandpaper.

He smiles. "I promise I'll be here in the morning."

A sob hiccups out of her. She can't help but pull him in for one more hug. He doesn't resist. He grips her shoulders and hugs her back. Hugs her, instead of endures her grip. She presses a kiss to his temple before she parts, whispering fiercely, "I'm so glad you're home."

"Me too," he says. He lets go first.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: This is the last of the Danny POV bits. I ultimately chose to do the majority of the sequel from the perspective of other characters for two reasons. One, to emphasize just how different Danny is from when he was taken, and two, to feel less like a shitheel for writing a mostly negative fic about a blind character when I myself am not blind. I'm glad I realized very early on that the story I wanted to tell wouldn't fit the narrative of a fully blind perspective—at least, not without an enormous amount of research 2015!me wasn't willing to put in for fanfiction. Ultimately I think the reward from other characters' perspectives was worth it, but a part of me is still low-key fascinated by the limited narrative of a story told from a blind person's POV. I'm pretty sure this stems from my obsession of limited narration in general rather than from anything creepy, but if any blind folk (or friends of RL blind folk for that matter) want to call me out, by all means call me out. This fic might be dead and abandoned, but research is a constant and I want to do my utmost to not offend anyone who might otherwise enjoy the stories I'm telling._

* * *

Alone again.

He slips his backpack off and breathes in deeply. The smell and taste of dust, of disuse and stillness and _avoidance,_ is thicker here. Three years without regular use would do that to any room. Out in the hall he hears his parents walk toward their own bedroom.

"Oh my god," Jack whispers. It's as clear as a scream to Danny, even with his ghost half's sensitive ears tucked away. Guilt floods him. He focuses on the soft rush of evening traffic outside, the thrum and throb of the Ghost Portal two stories beneath him, the electricity humming in the walls. Anything to drown out their conversation. He wants them to have their privacy, to have time to come to terms with—with everything.

He doesn't need eyes to know he's not the same skinny kid he used to be.

He reaches out his right hand until he bumps his knuckles on—his old desk. That's right. That means his bed should be directly ahead.

He shuffles forward, kicking up dust that tickles his nose. His right knee brushes against something soft. A comforter. His bed. "That's right," he murmurs.

If memory serves the bedroom door is closer to one corner of the room, the bed situated between two tall windows. The streetlight outside used to help him sleep when he was little; a warm glow that drove away the darkness and the imaginary ghosts lurking under his bed. The streetlight is still there, probably, but he won't be taking any comfort from its glow now.

The mattress creaks when he sits down. He unlaces his boots, sets them down by the foot of the bed. He scoots sideways up the mattress until his fingers grope the nightstand, gritty with a thin film of dust. He sets his sunglasses there, rests his backpack against the nightstand's leg. He slides his jacket and hoodie off, folds them each in half and drapes them over the headboard within easy, knowable reach. He never used to be half so organized, not even when he was Freakshow's, but now there's not much choice unless he wants to trip over an errant boot and break his nose for the...

Eh. He can't remember how many times he's broken it.

He can hear and feel a steady electrical buzz coming from the nightstand. An alarm clock, most likely. He'll need to get an analog clock or something, pry the cover off so he can feel out the time by touch. It's hopelessly low-tech and there's sure to be far better options out there for—for people like him, but it'd work in a pinch. He's just sick of not knowing what _time _it is. Back at the safe house the other ghosts would patiently tell him even when paranoia drove him to ask every couple of minutes. For now, at least, he'll have to listen for the traffic and the birds.

He pulls his legs up onto the bed, twists and sits cross-legged so he's facing the door and/or his desk. He plucks his glass eyes out and places them in their leather case, pulled from the front pocket of his backpack. His sockets ache fiercely. Something else for the to-do list. He'll get to it, eventually.

He buries his face in his hands and waits for morning.


	3. Chapter 3

In the morning, Jack wakes up to find Maddie already up and showered, a new jumpsuit tied at her waist and the bedroom reeking of Icy Hot. His nose burns. He looks at the clock. It's not even seven.

"What are you doing up?" He asks quietly. She still jumps.

"Oh. Sorry. Did I wake you?"

He shakes his head and gets out of bed with only a minimal amount of aches and pains worth griping about. Nobody said ghost hunting would be easy. Maddie watches him pull a clean jumpsuit out of the closet, socks underthings from their shared dresser. "I couldn't sleep," she says.

"Me neither," he admits. He didn't fall asleep properly until the dawn had begun to stain the sky gray.. "Is he...?"

"I don't know," she says. "I haven't heard him moving around."

He tuts. "Poor thing. I wouldn't be surprised if he slept all day. He looked like he hadn't had a decent night's sleep in..." He trails off weakly. He doesn't want to finish that sentence. Maddie winces all the same.

"I know. And all those—those _scars._ Did you see his hands?" A breath shudders out of her. "What did that monster _do _to him?"

There's no answer to that. Not yet. Danny said he'd tell them everything though. He said they deserved to know. Last night, only a scant few hours ago. Jack hadn't been able to look away from the pale slash across Danny's mouth. It had wrinkled when he spoke, turned white when he feigned a smile. "I don't know," he says.

"Danny—he didn't say how he got away." Maddie slips her arms into her suit, busies her hands with the zipper. "Do you remember what Sam said? About the first time Freakshow took him?"

"Yes," he says, but Maddie goes on as if he hadn't spoken at all.

"She said she was able to get through to him. Talk to him so he heard her. Shake him out of that control enough to break that staff Freakshow had."

"I know," Jack says, and though it's agony to admit he says it anyway. He has to. "Danny didn't say what creepy thingamabob Freakshow used this time around."

Maddie winces.

"Must've been something a heckuva lot stronger if it took him three years to break free."

"Almost three years," she corrects. She turns to look up at him. Her eyes are bruised with exhaustion, her hair a damp and tangled mess. "Months, Jack. He's been free from that bastard for months. He said he should've been hospitalized. What could he have—"

"Hush. Stop, hssh." He drops his clothes on their bed so he can gather her up in his arms. He hugs her until she stops trembling, strokes her hair for long minutes after that. "He'll tell us. He said he would. We've gotta be strong for him now, Mads. He's home, sure, but he needs us to be strong for him. Whatever happened, whatever was done to him, he's still—"

"—still Danny. I know." She sniffs, swallows. "I just—he wouldn't _look _at us, Jack. Not once. And he moved liked—like—like a _dog, _Jack. Like he expected us to—to _beat _him for leaving—"

"I know," he says.

Danny hadn't shed a single tear last night; only shook and flinched and said, _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, _over and over and over. Jack has never wanted to hurt another man in his life before now, but more than anything he wants to see Freakshow _bleed _for what he'd done to his boy. "Come on," he says with forced cheer. "Get your face on. I'll be out of the shower in two shakes and then we can see about making that skinny son of ours a proper breakfast, huh?"

Maddie's smile is wobbly, but it's a start.

Twenty minutes later Jack walks nervously behind her down the hall, feeling like a stranger in his own house. He lets her knock on Danny's door—a door he's opened like clockwork once a week to dust and vacuum and mop up tears he couldn't bring himself to shed anywhere else. He'd staunchly ignored it otherwise, for his family's sanity as much as his own. It still hurt to walk past every single day since Danny vanished.

"In the kitchen!" Danny calls out.

They both jump, but Maddie's the one to stutter quick laughter. Nervous syllables that strain and trip over one another until he squeezes her shoulder to make her stop.

They both jump, but Maddie's the one to stutter quick laughter. Nervous syllables that strain and trip over one another until he squeezes her shoulder to make her stop.

.They walk downstairs. He can hear the old coffee pot percolating away, smell the rich smell of a fresh brew burbling as it would any other perfectly normal day. The combination of such a habitual, ritual smell-sound eases the tension that wants to gather in his jaw. He can almost muster a smile as they enter the kitchen.

Danny's sitting at the table, in his old-usual chair nearest the refrigerator. There's an empty glass wet with condensation near his right hand, a banana peel squashed inside. In the center of the table is a strange necklace; a thick gold chain ending in a fat crimson gem. Danny's got those cheap reflective sunglasses on again, the same as last night, and his shoulders are hunched so high they ought to be stapled to his pierced ears. He looks like any sudden movement will send him bolting for then nearest exit and all Jack wants to do is hold his boy tight and tell him he's sorry he couldn't protect him from the monsters like he always promised he would.

"Morning," Danny says neutrally. "I made coffee, but I couldn't remember how you guys take it."

Maddie responds while he struggles to find a way to answer without his voice breaking. "Thank you." She squeezes his arm meaningfully, goes to the cupboard where their vast collection of mugs in and pulls two down. She glances over at Danny, uncertain, then pulls a third mug down too.

"Did you sleep well?" He asks helplessly. Danny smiles, but the faint gleam of his teeth doesn't carry anything positive to it at all.

"Well enough, sure. I forgot how soft my old mattress was though."

He's so careful with his phrasing. Jack can't help but assume the worst. Where has Danny been forced to sleep in these years since he was taken? Couches? Floors? _The streets? _God. He folds his hands together and puts on the broadest smile he can muster. "So! Danny! That's a nice bit of jewelry y'got there. Where'd you get it?"

"Freakshow."

Oh. Oh. Fuck.

Danny picks the necklace up, loops the chain through his fingers so the gem dangles freely. Despite a deep crack in its largest facet the gem shines with an eerie, unnatural brightness. It casts a perfect red square of light across the dining table's pitted surface, more like a sheet of tissue paper than simple light. "He used this to control the other ghosts," he says, holding it out to Jack with a thin, inscrutable smile. "Here. Put it on."

Jack balks. "Oh, Danny, no. No, I couldn't—"

"It's okay. You won't do anything to me, but it'll help me if you guys have a little..." Danny hums, searching for the right word. "...Perspective, I guess, with what it's like. Go on, Dad. Put it on."

Jack hesitates, his hand outstretched. He looks to Maddie, his compass for even the meanest of difficult decisions, but she's as inscrutable as Danny in this. She stands rigidly near the coffee pot, her painted mouth a thin, unhappy line. He'll find no guidance from her for this.

Sheer curiosity is what makes him take the necklace and slip it over his head. The gem hardly has a chance to bounce off his chest before the power of it _bleeds _into him. He gasps. For one awful moment, for one brilliant eternity, his visions grays and then warms over crimson. His mind empties of all rational thought, drains of all inherent self. He is—

He's only—

He'd expected—

It's not—

It's _nothing _like—

He couldn't have expected _this._

It's electricity humming under his skin, an awareness stretching far beyond his primitive flesh, far beyond his limited human senses. He can feel the Fenton Portal boiling in its steel and rive frame down in the basement. He can feel It—aware, eager, _hungry. _He can feel experiments bubbling, ectoplasm thrashing in plexiglass containers. Sentient, if not intelligent. Alive in a way that defies a pulse. Electricity and light and _power. _He can feel the same ravenous hunger fizzling inside Danny's skinny frame, bubbling and boiling and hissing, a shaken soda bottle one cap twist away from foaming over. It's too much. It's too _much._

Jack blinks, falling into himself again. He _becomes _himself again; human and heavy and _weak. _Danny's smiling at him. It's all teeth, chipped and yellowed, sharper than they are in any of the old pictures.

"Feels good, doesn't it?"

"I—" Jack swallows. He tries to remember how to breathe. Largely fails. He yanks the necklace off, practically throwing it to the table. His heart pounds. His hands shake. His voice doesn't sound anything like it ought to when he croaks, "My god. Danny, I—what—what _was _that?"

"Jack?" Maddie asks warily.

It.

He.

He doesn't know what to say.

He doesn't have the _words _to describe what happened or how it felt. He only knows that he's scared. He's _terrified _of what Danny brought home with him.

"I know," Danny murmurs. Calm. He's utterly, wholly calm. Jack latches onto the dry rasp of his son's voice as if it were the only lifeline afforded to him. For all he knows, it is. "I put it on once, not too long after we were all freed. Just to see how it worked. What it felt like. I was curious. I wanted to know what it felt like to be on the other side of the puppet strings."

Jack swallows. Licks his lips. "I—"

Danny ignores him. "I accidentally made one of my friends walk into a wall. I didn't mean to. Honestly, I didn't. It was just a background thought in my head. I'd gotten so _sick _of being stuck in bed and just wanted some fresh air, and that was enough to make her veer right into a wall." He chuckles. "Freakshow never took the damn thing off. Probably explains why he was so manic all the time."

"Danny, that—" Jack shakes his head feebly. "That was _awful. _He _used _that thing? All the time?"

"On about, mm, forty ghosts. Total, not all at once. I think the most he ever had at one time was—twenty-three? Not including me, of course."

"You said it wouldn't work on you," Maddie says as she joins them at the table. She sets a mug down for each of them before sitting down. Danny only glances at his but Jack grasps his like a lifeline with both hands. "Do you have any idea why that is?"

Danny's smile is thin and humorless. "That's not what I said. I said _Dad _wouldn't do anything. The necklace absolutely works on me."

Jack stares at him aghast. "What? But I could have—I might've hurt you, o-or—"

"Nah. You wouldn't've done anything I couldn't shrug off." He sniffs, then takes a slow gulp of coffee before continuing. "It's all about intent. You don't mean it to stick, it won't work."

Maddie looks at Jack wordlessly. Something in his expression must convey how shaken he is. She reaches over to squeeze his arm. It's practically Pavlovian how much her touch relaxes him. "If he didn't use this..." Her mouth purses with brief distaste, "this _device _on you, then what did he use?"

"Yeah, he had something special for me, all right." He slips a few fingers under his collar and pulls a fine gold chain out and over his head. A glass vial dangles from it; about three inches long and stopped with a cork. Something glitters inside, casting four red slashes of light across the table. "He used these."

Jack doesn't move, reluctant to even risk brushing his fingers against whatever-it-is and feeling that same overwhelming rush again. Maddie takes the vial from Danny's outstretched hand. Whatever's inside plinks against the glass as she turns it over with a frown. "What am I looking at here?"

"Needles," Danny says, and Jack goes _cold _straight through. "Don't take 'em out. They'll go straight through your gloves, trust me."

Maddie nearly drops the vial, looking stricken. There aren't a lot of conclusions one can make about mind control and _needles. _"Uh," Jack manages. "How... how did he...?"

"See how they're different sizes? Two long, two short? The long ones have caps too, but I dunno why. He slipped the long ones into his wrists—" They both wince but Danny continues as if he didn't notice. "—but I dunno if the placement of those matters. I didn't even know about them until after I was free. The little guys went into me the night I was taken."

Maddie holds the vial out between pinched fingers so Jack can see. The "little guys" are about the same length as sewing needles and wickedly sharp. He doesn't want to ask. He doesn't want to know the answer. But he needs to—he has to—for Danny's sake.

Maddie beats him to the punch. Her voice is forcefully detached when she asks, "Where were these inserted?"

Danny doesn't answer. He takes a deep breath, knots his fingers together and pulls them apart again. He touches his sunglasses, his mouth, then drags a hand through his hair as he laughs weakly. "Shit. I'm sorry. This is—it's harder than I thought it'd be."

"Sweetheart, it's okay. You don't have to—"

"It's funny," he interrupts. "And by 'funny,' I guess I mean it's pretty dumb. But it's been driving me nuts ever since she gave them to me."

"What has?" Jack asks at the same time Maddie asks, "Gave you what?"

"She told me they're blue, and they probably are?" He jerks one shoulder in a small, self-conscious shrug. "But she also said she picked 'em out because she thought it was a good color for me, and coming from a dead lady with a giant tarantula tattooed right on her—"

"Danny," Maddie says quietly.

He shudders, pressing the heels of his scarred hands to his temples like he wants to simply squeeze whatever he's trying to say out of his head and be done with it. "Gah. I'm sorry. I should've just told you guys last night when you were already all cried out." He yanks his sunglasses off. "Did she get the color right?"

A beat of silence falls between them. Jack blinks, confused, blinks again when Maddie's hands jump to her mouth. Her voice breaks. "_Oh._ Oh, Sweetie..."

"What?" Jack asks. What's wrong? Danny looks—not fine, no. He looks like the monster that stole him away in the night treated him like trash, like something nasty stuck to the bottom of his shoe. The word _abuse _has been running itself ragged in the back of his mind since he first got a good look at Danny's poor hands. But right now Danny just looks tired, shiny white eyeliner smeared around his eyes. He doesn't know what's upset Maddie so.

"I'm still getting used to—well. To _this,"_ Danny stammers. "It's, uh, it's the big reason why I took so long coming home. I—while I was still controlled I could—I was _fine. _With the needles in me, I mean. I was. I could see fine when he wanted me to. My eyes were this creepy red so I always had to wear sunglasses around humans, but that was it. It was getting them out of me that did this." He waves at his face, sitting stiffly, sitting like he wants to bolt out of the room and pretend he hasn't told them—told them what? Jack leans forward, trying to make sense of it, and finally sees what's staring him in the face.

Danny's eyes are the wrong color. Too dark. Ocean blue rather than the sky blue he'd inherited from his old man. He thinks for a moment—_prays_ for a moment—that they're only contacts. But even though Danny's looking at Maddie, he isn't looking _at _her.

"Oh," Jacks says numbly. "Oh."

Danny stretches out his hand, pawing around the table, groping _blindly._ It hurts to watch, but Jack can only sit there and watch. He sits like the big stupid lump he is with his hands gripping his coffee mug so tightly it should by all rights shatter. Maddie sits frozen beside him, twitching her hand a little to let the vial go when Danny tugs on the chain. He slips it over his head again, hiding the vial under his shirt like a dirty secret. "Lydia—she was the one who kidnapped me, but she's the one who freed me too—she said this was the only sure way to get them out without breaking them. She didn't want to risk leaving any splinters behind. Freakshow trusted her, y'know? He never treated her like the rest of us. Never controlled her—or, well. _Mostly _didn't. But she could do whatever she wanted, come and go as she pleased. But she couldn't exactly burn his needles out without him knowing, obviously, so she had to do it the hard way—"

He's rambling. Talking for the sake of filling the silence because Jack and Maddie are just sitting there mute with horror. God, he's filling the silence because he can't see their faces, he can't gauge their reactions because _he can't see—_

"Danny," Jack croaks, but Danny jerks back, teeth clicking together.

"I'm okay," he says too quickly. "I'm—I'm adapting. And it's not like I'm tripping over ever little thing and busting my face open. Turns out being half-ghost really does have some benefits. Who knew?" He laughs. Too loudly, too forced. Jack's stomach clenches. He wants to beg Danny to stop. Stop talking, stop pretending, to just _stop. _"And _believe _me, I'd rather be blind the rest of my life than belong to Freakshow another day."

_Belong._ What a simple, commonplace word. Yet hearing it now, in this context, said by his _son, _makes him want to throw his mug at the wall in disgust. He wants to break every dish in the cupboards. He wants to squeeze that man's throat bruised and speechless and make sure he sees justice done for the—for the _hell _he put Danny through. He wants to hold Danny tightly and tell him there's no such things as monsters.

_"Where is he."_

Danny frowns. "Huh?"

"That—that _man,"_ he seethes through clenched teeth. It's taking all his self-control not to bellow. He's—he has _never _been so angry in his life. "That _creep _who—who did this to you. He—I'll _make _him—he's got to _pay _for this. Nobody can get away with treating my son like—"

_"Dad."_

Danny's voice is a whip crack, loud enough to leave Jack's ears ringing. Coffee spills across the table from Maddie's mug but she doesn't seem to notice. She just looks at Danny, her face wet with tears. Danny's hands are slapped flat to the table, his eyes—prosthetic, fake, blind, he's _blind—_glaring holes at nothing. "You can't," he says, voice tight.

"I—of course I can! _Something's _gotta be done about him. We can't just let him get away with—with kidnapping and enslaving a _child, _not to mention whatever else he did to you!"

"You _can't,"_ Danny repeats doggedly. "Because he's dead."

In short words, clinically spoken, as if he were reading about it in some dusty old history book, like it wasn't his own _life—_Danny tells them. Things were bad, and then they got worse. Lydia didn't like what Freakshow was doing. They fought about it and Lydia left. ("What did he do?" Maddie asks in a quavering voice, and Danny opens and shuts his mouth, then moves on without answering.) When Lydia came back she held Danny down and burned his eyes out of his face, and only then was he freed.

"I _remembered," _Danny says . He's sitting again, sliding his empty glass of water with the banana peel inside back and forth as he speaks. Left hand to right, right hand to left, grinding loudly across the table. Jack wants to knock it off the table. He wants to hold Danny's hands. He sits there and drinks his room temperature coffee instead. "Everything he'd made me forget finally came back to me. I was _me _again. I'd—I'd managed to remember a few things before that, here and there. My name. You guys and Jazz. Sam and Tucker. But it was all..."

Left hand to right. Right hand to left.

"It wasn't _mine._ It was like—like catching a few minutes of a TV show you've heard about but don't really _know._ That's all I had until Lydia freed me. _Everything _came back, and having that—having _me—_and not just a jumble of words and colors made everything else so much realer too." Left hand to right. Right hand to left. The little smile on his face is fond, nearly reverent. "Everything felt _more._ I can remember laying on the floor of the train car and being so aware of the wood under me and the smell of the hay and a cool breeze coming in through the open door. How much my face fucking hurt and how tired and weak I felt. I could feel my _heart _again, pounding in my chest and ears. It was like waking up from a dream. I remembered I was still alive. I _remembered. _And after that... Freakshow died after that."

"How—" escapes Maddie, and immediately looks like she regrets it. But if she hadn't Jack would've. They're both scientists _and _parents. They have to know everything, never mind how much it hurts to hear. Jack pries one hand off his mug to hold hers, squeezing it gently.

"I..." Left hand to right. Right hand to left. "I flew out of the train car. Chased him down. He was laughing about something, schmoozing it up with some other humans, so it was easy. I was going to—I wanted to—" Left hand to right, right hand to left. His face smooths. He sets his anger aside like so much silverware in a drawer. "I was going to tear him apart. I wish I had. But I didn't, because—because Lydia got there first. She pushed me down and—I dunno what she did. All I heard was a crunch before I passed out."

Danny keeps sliding the glass back and forth, but that seems to be all he's willing to share of—of that. Jack swallows the morbid questions stuck in his throat and asks, "Passed out?"

"Yeah. I was totally drained. That was the first time I went human since the night they took me. Good thing the others didn't bail on me as soon as—as soon as Lydia broke the necklace, otherwise I probably woulda died for real." He laughs.

_Laughs._

Maddie sits hunched over the table, folded in on herself like a cloth napkin. "He—he never knew, did he?"

"Nope." Danny finally sets the glass aside, twitching when it pings against his empty mug. "He just thought I was good at mimicking humans."

This time, Jack doesn't lag behind. He knows exactly what Maddie's trying to ask, why the fear in face has drawn such deep lines. He looks at his boy, with his too-sharp cheekbones and the blueberry veins painted down his neck. His nose, broken so badly its healed crooked and hooked. Danny's teeth seem too big for his gaunt face, chipped and stained. His fingers are a gnarled mess, calluses and scar tissue and old breaks never set right. He's so thin. He's so _young._

"Tell me they took you to a hospital," Jack begs.

"Nope. I should've, sure, but that wasn't really an option. But the others were there for me, took care of me 'til I could get around on my own again. I think they did pretty good, don't you?"

"But—" Maddie begins, but stops when Danny bares his teeth in a flash of irritation.

"What was I supposed to do? Drag myself to the nearest ER with eyes dribbling out of my face? Was I supposed to tell the nice doctors what had happened to me and not expect to get locked up? Was I supposed to tell the cops or social services or whoever that I'm a milk carton kid that'd been forced to join the _circus, _but oh yeah! I'm also part of a troupe of feral ghosts that've been terrorizing suckers out of their money for years! And oh, hey doc, don't worry about those crazy readings your equipment's giving you. It's not broken, I'm just a _freak!"_

He's getting louder, nearly shouting now as he slaps his hand to the table and barks out hard laughter. "Ha _ha!_ And let's not forget I've spent the last three years committing all kinds of crimes across two, maybe three continents. Robbing suckers is just scratching the _surface _of what he made me do, and if you think that _bastard _was the first human I—"

Danny clamps his mouth shut, stepping away from the table so quickly his chair screeches against the tile floor. He breathes out, and out, and out. "I didn't have a choice," he says, and his face immediately twists. He rakes his hands through his hair. "I'm—I need some air."

Jack stretches out his hand—stupid thing to do, it's not like he can _see _it. "Danny, wait—"

But Danny bolts, not for the doorway but straight _up_. He kicks off the floor and vanishes through the ceiling in a hard buzz of light. Jack doesn't move for the doorway; he _lunges. _He can catch Danny before he reaches the roof if he's quick—

"Don't."

He whirls to look at Maddie. "But—!"

She stands quietly, gathering the mugs and Danny's glass. "We can't—we shouldn't push him. We don't know what he's been through."

"He's told us enough that I know we need to be there for him _now! _He needs to know we can help—"

"We _can't."_ She goes to the sink, busies her hands with dish soap and a sponge as she waits for the water to warm. "He's terrified, Jack. Can't you see that? He's so afraid that we'll—I don't know. That we'll _hate _him if he tells us too much. I don't want to think about what he's been through. I know anything I might imagine won't come close to the truth. I want to hold him and tell him everything's going to be okay, but it won't be. It _can't _be. We weren't there for him when he needed us, and—_god,_ Jack. He didn't even seem sorry that this Lydia ghost killed that man—"

"And why should he?!" Jack demands hotly. But the ferocity thrumming through him drains away. He slumps in the doorframe, his face crumpling. "Why should he? Our boy. Our Danny."

Maddie abandons the sink to slip into his arms, resting her forehead to his chest. He holds her tightly and _shakes._

"Our boy," he says. "Our Danny."

"I know."

"He's _blind,_ Mads."

"I _know."_

"He's so... I barely recognize him. It's him—I _know _it's him, but it's like..."

Words have never been his strong suit, but Maddie understands. Of course she does. She knows him better than he knows himself. Their boy. Their son. Their little hero, saving the day and sleeping through class, and they never _really _knew what a gift he was until it was too late to tell him so.

"It's like he died," she whispers.

"Yeah." Jack sniffs thickly. "It's like Danny really did die, and now his ghost is trying to come home."

They'd talk about this, many times before. Long hours in an empty house, curled up together on the floor of Danny's bedroom. Cradling old photographs, a shirt that still held a faint smell of him, a library book he never had a chance to return. They're scientists, trailblazers in their field. They _had _to talk about this. How each day without answers meant percentages ticking up and down in all the wrong directions. There's a hole punched through reality in their basement that leaks phantasms no matter their efforts to better secure it. They knew. They'd talked about this.

Imagining it never got any easier.

"But he isn't dead," Maddie says. "That's not what happened. It's him. Danny's home and alive. He's scared and he's been hurt—" She swallows. "He's been hurt so much. But we can't overwhelm him. We have to wait until he's ready to be here with us again. Until he's ready to accept our help. Until then we—we just have to remind him he's safe now."

What did he do to deserve a woman so wonderful? He presses a kiss to her temple. "You're right. Always are, but don't let that go to your head."

She laughs weakly, pulling away. "Weren't you saying something about breakfast earlier?"


	4. Chapter 4

They have the ingredients to make pancakes from scratch.

Maddie can't recall the last time they bought eggs. Still, the expiration date isn't for another two days and they've started humming ominously yet, so they should be safe enough. She cracks one smartly against the edge of the pan, adding it in. At the stove Jack's laying out thick strips of bacon. He hums almost cheerfully as he grabs the lemon pepper off the spice rack. It almost sounds convincing.

She can't remember the last time they cooked breakfast either. A proper breakfast, meant to be shared and enjoyed at the table rather than something gulped down on the go. Surely they must have when Jazz came home for winter break—

"Oh, _no."_

"What's up, babycakes?"

_"Jazz."_

Jack blinks at her blankly for a second before going pale with dismay. _"Jazz. _Oh my god, she doesn't know yet."

"I _completely _forgot—"

"Me too. Ah, she'll skin us alive for not calling her ASAP—"

"I'll call her now."

"Yeah, of course, let me—" He pulls the whisk out of her hand and nudges her aside. "Tell her hi."

"Right—" Where's the house phone? Where is it? Off the hook again; it's no wonder it's always dead whenever she wants to make a phone call. No, ah, there it is, on the hook after all—

She walks quickly into the living room, sinking stiffly into the high-backed chair Jack likes to do his needlepoint in. Her mouth tastes sour, her stomach clenching and her chest tight. Maybe coffee on an empty stomach was a bad idea. Maybe she should wait to call until after breakfast. It's early. Jazz might be in class, or sleeping in, or—

She dials anyway.

It takes four rings before Jazz picks up. In the background fuzz Maddie can hear another girl talking over the low thumping of music. _"Hello?"_

"Ah—good morning, sweetie! It's Mom."

"_Oh, hi Mom!"_ A burst of laughter, muffled voices jeering cheerfully. _"Oh, jeez. Hang on a sec', Mom, my roommates are being obnoxious."_ The giggling protests _("We are not!" "You're obnoxious!" "Aww, I'm wounded.")_ and the music fade away. Jazz sounds a little breathless when she speaks again. _"Sorry about that. What's up? You never call this early."_

"I... that is, Danny..."

_"Mom?"_

It should be so easy to say yet her throat feels desert dry, her voice stolen away. "He—he's come home."

_"I can barely hear you. Are you okay?"_

She clears her throat. "Danny's home."

Silence stretches for so long Maddie takes the phone away from her ear to make sure it hasn't died after all. _"...What?"_

"Late last night," she clarifies. "We got home late after some attacks. He—he was just _waiting _for us on the couch. He's _home, _sweetie."

_"Oh—god. I—oh my god. Where was—? Where did—?"_ There's a burst of static, an explosive exhale distorting the reception as Jazz tries to get a grip. _"How is he?"_

Maddie sighs too, folding up to rest her head in one hand and shut her eyes a moment. Her side _aches _from where Skulker hit her yesterday. All the more reason she should've waited until after breakfast to call. Every breath is an effort. Even so, it's nothing compared to the grief tangling in her chest. "I don't know. He's... he's been hurt, honey."

_"Hurt? What do you mean? Are you at the hospital?"_

"No, no. But..." But she thinks they ought to go. She knows Danny would fight it. Is this something they should push? Or would it better to first study him before letting strange doctors try and make sense of him? How to they separate the damage done to him from the whatever abnormalities caused by the lab accident?

_"Mom?"_

Right, right. Something to talk over with Jack, later. "Sam and Tucker were right about who took him."

Another rush of static. Maddie pretends not to have heard the curse that slips out with it. _"It—it really was the people from Circus Gothica?"_

"Yes. Danny—that man found another way to control him." She fights the wholly inappropriate urge to laugh. What a thing to say! Young boy mind controlled by madman with magic needles; that's the plot of a Saturday morning cartoon. Things like _this _shouldn't happen in real life. "He only got free recently."

_"He's alive? He's not—he's not a full ghost, is he?"_

Danny's pulse hammering against her cheek when she'd hugged him. His skin icy to the touch, but his breath still warm. "Yes."

_"Oh, thank goodness. I—I thought—I was starting to think I'd never see him alive again." _She sniffs, laughing wetly. _"I—I'll talk with my professors. They'll understand. I probably won't be able to leave until tomorrow, but—"_

"Jazz, no, wait a minute—"

_"What's wrong?"_

"Danny is—" She can't say it. If she tells Jazz, it'll be something she'll have to face. But Jazz needs to know. "He's h-hurt."

_"You said that. What happened? Why haven't you taken him to the—"_

"He's blind."

_"—what?"_

It pours out of her like pus from a wound, all the guilt and shame and horror that threatens to choke her otherwise. She wasn't there for her son when he needed her, and look what happened. Danny didn't dare trust his own parents with the truth of the accident. He had every right to fear what they'd do if he did tell them, and look what happened. "The—what was his name? Showenhower? That man controlled him again, somehow, with these—he put these _things _in his eyes. The only way the ghost could free Danny was to—to—she _burned _them out. His eyes are _gone _now, Jazz. Oh god, sweetie, he can't _see—"_

_"Mom, stop. Stop." _There's a muffled bang as Maddie takes a shaky breath and tries to wrestle back some semblance of control, the scrape of loose changed scraped across a countertop. _"Okay. I—okay. When did that happen? Did he say?"_

"Ah—a few months ago. He's been—recovering. He wouldn't go to a hospital when—when it happened. The ghosts Showenhower had been controlling as well looked after him until he could come home." She thumbs her eyes dry, blinking rapidly.

_"Where is he?"_

"The roof, I think."

_"The roof?!"_

Maddie winces. "He just went out to get some air. I think we pushed him too far, asked too many questions he wasn't ready for. We're giving him some time to himself."

_"I... wow. Okay. That's—good, actually. Really good." _More thuds, shuffling. Jazz's breath comes too quickly. _"I'm packing now. I don't care what my professors say. I'm coming home."_

"Hold on, your classes—

_"Forget my classes!" _Static crackles. _"I can afford to miss a week. It'll be fine."_

"...Alright. We'll make up your room today."

_"Thanks. Thank you. And Mom? Don't—whatever's happened, whatever that—that guy did, don't treat Danny like he's broken."_

"I—well of course not."

_"I mean it. Don't handle him like he's made out of glass, but don't—don't pretend nothing happened either. You've got to be there for him, but on his terms. Okay?"_

Maddie smiles. "You're never going to stop critiquing my parenting skills, are you?"

_"Only when you stop being such a great mom."_ Jazz laughs, sniffling. _"Love you. I'll be home as soon as I can._"

"Love you too, sweetie. Drive safe."

_"I will. Bye, Mom."_

After Jazz hangs up Maddie remains where she is, breathing steadily until the dial tone blares. She thumbs the end call button. Gradually she grows aware of a warm, over-sweet smell coming from the kitchen. Oh. Right. Breakfast.

As she puts the phone back on the wall charger Jack nods toward the ceiling. "Shower's on."

She can just hear the faint rush of water in the walls. "Has he...?"

"Not yet." He goes back to laying out curled strips of bacon on a paper towel. "He'll come down though."

She wishes she were so certain of that. "Need a hand?"

"Nah, I'm nearly finished. You ought to take it easy anyway, after yesterday. What did Jazz say?"

She fetches her mug from the sink. She needs more coffee and a handful of ibuprofen. "She's coming home soon, hopefully for about a week if she can manage it."

"That long? Well, I'm sure her professors will understand." He shuffles over a little to give her more room by the coffee maker. "Did you... tell her? About...?"

He can't stomach saying it either. Maddie thinks of Danny's hands, mangled like someone had taken a hammer to each finger. Missing joints, knuckles lumpy with scar tissue, palms as rough as a dog's paws. She thinks of his forced smile, his too-dark eyes aiming for her and missing by inches because he _can't—_

"Yes," she chokes out. Oh, if only she could crawl back to bed and start this day over again. She stirs creamer into her coffee. The spoon clinking against the ceramic sounds deafening. "I told her."

"Mads—"

"I'm okay," she says. Too quickly. Jack doesn't push her.

She retreats to the dining table, sits and breathes deeply the smells of fresh coffee, a home-cooked meal, _home. _It's so normal. They haven't done this in months, not since Jazz was home for winter break. They should do this more. Make time to sit and enjoy good food and family. For Danny's sake.

Her eyes fall to the necklace, forgotten on the table when Danny took off—flew off, and doesn't the scientist in her marvel to see a human fly? The necklace, with its one cracked facet, still seems to gleam at disparate angles than what it ought to reflect from the overhead lights. It's certainly paranormal. Perhaps its origin can be traced to some part of the Ghost Zone directly, foraged out of some naturally-occurring portal, its manipulative properties discovered in some chance encounter with a spirit. Or, perhaps simply when touched. Jack had looked so—

Frightened?

Energized?

Jack had looked so _strange _when he'd worn it earlier. She's curious. She wants to understand, and the added benefit of it being a distraction from her guilt is nice too.

"Don't touch it."

She pulls her hand back, startled. Jack sets brimming plates down on the table, sliding the necklace out of the way with one plate rather than touch even the chain, even with gloves on. Since when has Jack ever exercised caution? When has she ever heard him sound so scared? He doesn't say more, and Maddie chooses to hold her tongue for now. She sips her coffee instead, watching him bring more plates and silverware over. Scrambled eggs, buttered toast, orange juice poured into three tall glasses. He even dug out the special pancake molds they'd bought years ago, back when pancakes shaped like ghosts made the kids laugh instead of roll their—

Mm.

"You went all out," she says.

He tosses a smile, slightly strained, over his shoulder as he pours another cup of coffee for himself. "Yeah. Felt good to."

She smiles back. He's never been comfortable in the kitchen, too prone to burning water and accidentally reviving the main course. But he'd made a real attempt this morning, and everything before her looks not only edible but delicious too.

She means to thank him. Really, she does. But what comes out instead is, "What did the necklace feel like?"

Jack hesitates by his chair, a flicker of fear there and gone in his eyes. "I... mm. It felt like—"

"Like you could do anything."

Maddie nearly jumps out of her skin, only just catches herself from drawing a wrist ray out a pocket and firing it at the voice coming from nowhere. Danny blinks into sight in the doorway with a small _pop._ His shaggy hair hangs damply in his face and he's traded the black hoodie out for a long-sleeved shirt, black too. Is everything he owns black? "Danny," she tries cheerfully, but he shakes his head.

Like you could do anything."

Maddie nearly jumps out of her skin, only just catches herself from drawing a wrist ray out a pocket and firing it at the voice coming from nowhere. Danny blinks into sight in the doorway with a small _pop._ His shaggy hair hangs damply in his face and he's traded the black hoodie out for a long-sleeved shirt, black too. Is everything he owns black? The sunglasses are on again too. Are his eyes open or closed behind them?

"Danny," she tries, but he shakes his head.

"Like you could hold out your head and pull the electricity out of the walls. Like all it would take to get everything you ever wanted was a snap of your fingers." He raises his left hand and does just that, a hard _crack _that makes Maddie jump again. Bright green ectoplasm coats his hand like a layer of paint, blooming out and up in a softly pulsing glow. He waves his hand and the light dissipates in a thin trail of smoke; a metallic tang sours the air. "At least, that's how it felt on the other side of the strings. So long as long as you didn't fight him."

Jack's face pinches miserably. "Danny-boy—"

You didn't have to make breakfast." He walks into the kitchen, edging around their chairs and finding his own without noticeable hesitation. If he didn't hold out his hands as he walked—if he hadn't _told _them—she doesn't think she would know anything was wrong. "You guys must have a million and one things to do down in the lab."

"Nonsense!" Jack exclaims with forced cheer. "We had to do something to celebrate you comin' home, didn't we? And besides, what's a better way to start your day than with a good old home-cooked, sit-down breakfast with your family? Just like old times, huh?"

Danny grins. "You used the ghost molds, didn't you?"

"I did! And they're chocolate chip too."

"No kidding? Well jeez, I kinda feel bad now, but I'm gonna have to pass on your infamous ghostcakes."

"Not hungry?" Maddie asks, accepting the butter tray from Jack. They exchanged a wordless, worried look.

"Oh, sure I am. But living on fair food for three years has kiiinda killed my sweet tooth." He grimaces. "Sorry. I'm sure they're great, but the smell alone is making me wanna hurl."

Another worried look exchanged, and they both reach for the stack of pancakes at the same time. "We'll put them away," she says quickly.

"I shoulda asked what you wanted, sorry about that, Dan-o—"

He waves dismissively. "No, hey, sit down. Don't worry about it. You guys enjoy, please." He sniffs, then slides his hand carefully across the table until he finds the plate of bacon. He makes a small and pleased sound, dumping half of it all onto his own plate.

"If you're sure," Jacks says uncertainly.

"I am. Go on, eat up. You put a lot of effort into all this."

As Jack awkwardly makes small talk, asking how Danny's settling in and if there's anything needing attention in his room, Maddie casts an eye around the table to see if there's anything Danny might want that's out of easy reach. It's only then she notices the necklace is gone. Did Jack...? No, he didn't want to touch it. When did Danny take it?

"And Jazz'll be home in a couple of days too!" Jack adds, elbowing her lightly.

She still startles badly.

"Ah—! Th-that's right! I just got off the phone with her."

"Oh yeah? Thought I heard you guys talking about her." Danny pauses long enough to swallow an alarming amount of scrambled eggs. "She's off at college, right? Ivy League all the way?"

"That's right," Jack says. "She'll be finishing her second year soon."

"Only her second?"

Maddie steps in when Jack flounders. "She took some time off after graduating."

Danny stills, his face smoothing over coldly. "Because I was gone."

"...Yes."

He sighs and goes back to eating.

Maddie bites her lip, giving Jack a helpless glance he mirrors. She doesn't know what else to say, doesn't know how to speak without tripping over her guilt. She's not the slightest bit hungry, but Jack did put the effort in while she handled calling Jazz. She over-peppers her eggs and still hardly tastes a thing.

Danny eats with astonishing speed even for a teenager, clearing his plate in record time. He doesn't reach for seconds though there's plenty left—not that he'd _know _that without either of them saying something—then fumbles for the glass of orange juice at his right. It slops, nearly spilling, but he catches it without any flicker of reaction crossing his face. "Oh," he says. "Would you guys happen to have Sam or Tucker's numbers?"


	5. Chapter 5

_Say hello to the deuteragonist everybody! :)_

_If memory serves I worked on the majority of this sequel during NaNoWriMo, which means a lot of writing by the seat of my pants with the intention of sorting out the B-plot stuff later. Guess what never happened! So there's the beginning of some threads in this chapter that aren't going to be resolved, specifically how Amity Park handled ghost attacks without Phantom, the fallout of Vlad's nefarious plots, and what Valerie's deal is. Honestly this chapter is where the story begins to fray, though it'll become far more apparent in a couple chapters. Still, I hope you all continue to enjoy what there is of it all! Your reviews have been so incredible. You're all great. 3_

* * *

It's a cold night, frost bleaching dark stretches of lawns and parks white and crisping. There's a high chance of snow this week too, and with how the wind whips through her armor like a cold knife scraped across bare skin Valerie's keen to believe it. She doesn't mind though. There's nowhere else she'd rather be than up here where the air thins and the city twinkles far below. She can stay out as late as she likes tonight too, since tomorrow's Saturday. Even if she did have school tomorrow it's not as if she's got a curfew she needs to worry about. Her daddy's worked night shifts so long he'd never know if she came home at six p.m. or a.m. She can't remember the last time they ate a meal together, the last time they had a real conversation. He's always so tired nowadays. She doesn't want to bother him.

Only a few months left until graduation. Then she can kiss her dead-end job goodbye and tell her daddy the truth. About Mr. Masters and her ghost hunting, about all the money she's saved up. Her paychecks from the Nasty Burger have helped with the bills, sure, but even that's just been breaking even. As soon as she's graduated—well, she'd wanted to quit as soon as she turned eighteen, but Mr. Masters convinced her to at least earn her GED—she'll move her daddy out of that dump of an apartment and into a house of his own again. A _nice _one, with a big backyard and a shed he can putter around in, and she'll fill it up with all the nice things they'd had to sell after he lost his old job and everything fell apart. Once she graduated she'll work for Mr. Masters full-time. Only a few more months until she won't have to hide anymore.

In the meantime? The night is young, and there are ghosts to hunt.

Her mouth twists with disdain. Ghosts to hunt? _Guppies, _maybe. The biggest she's seen in the last month was a paltry three on the GIW's threat scale, and that was only that stupid mutt Cujo. Manson had intervened when she'd tried to put it down for good, as per usual. One of these days she'll get even with that damn dog. In the meantime, all she can do is zap the local pests too weak to put up a satisfying fight. All the big ones that used to be worth fighting have all got clearance to travel in and out of Amity Park, or are locked up somewhere, or are licking their wounds in the Ghost Zone. Hunting may be the best thing she's ever done with her life, but it's almost gotten boring—

Her scanner pings. It pings _big._ A seven easy, maybe even a smoldering eight, lurking near Casper High. If Desiree weren't currently doing time in Walker's prison, Valerie would almost think the wishing ghost had learned how to read minds. Still, not like she's going to complain. A level seven. There hasn't been a ghost that strong in Amity Park in _ages._

She picks up speed, expecting to see the light show before the ghoul. Malevolent fire staining the night sky evil shades of red, the football field a smoking crater, the school so much rubble. She expects to see the silhouette of something vast and jagged, something with claws that brush the stars and teeth like scimitars. She's _itching _for a fight that will prove once and for all that what she's doing out here is worth the misery of her daylight hours.

But there's nothing there.

She hovers a scant fifty feet above the chain link fence marking the edge of the school grounds. She can see the football field, the red rubber track, the baseball diamond, the tennis courts. There are a few squares of light burning light in the main school building; nondescript fluorescents that teachers or janitors forgot to turn off. Everything is as it should be at this hour; dark, quiet, and calm.

She almost misses the ghost floating above the goalpost.

It's small, human-sized and human-shaped—if she ignores the eerie ribbon of its tail, anyway. It glows like a lantern in the otherwise dark field. Her visor stains its colors red, but she's learned to pick out the variations over the years. This ghost is a binary of snow whites and pale greens, and all the more unearthly for it. From even this distance she can pick out the flicker of ethereal fire atop its head.

She swoops closer, still keeping high in case it's feeling frisky, yet even with her V-board in stealth mode the ghost glares at her. A zoom of her visual feed brings its face into stark, crimson clarity. As she expected from its level it straddles the line between humanoid and monstrous, unable to make up its mind which one it might prefer. Ghosts like that are all the more dangerous in their confusion, eager to take out their frustration on human bystanders. Oh yeah, this one's going to be _fun._

She circles above the ghost, coming closer with each tight loop. She's in no hurry to antagonize the thing, not without an idea of what it might be capable of. It might even be halfway intelligent, seeing as how it hasn't charged her yet. She might get lucky tonight. She might just be able to coax it back to the Ghost Zone without any property damage at all.

Yeah, sure. With her luck? She shakes her head, rolling her shoulders in anticipation. She's got to be careful now, no sudden movements. Let it make the first move.

The ghost looks away—uninterested? _Unimpressed?—_and goes back to...

Doing a handstand on the goalpost.

It's. Doing a handstand. On the goalpost?

If she wasn't wearing her suit at the moment Valerie would pinch herself, because seriously. _What? _This level seven, maybe level eight ghost, this nightmare creature that looks like something a kid might describe as the monster hiding under their bed, is doing a bit of _gymnastics._ What's its game?

Maybe it's trying to throw her off. Then, when she's not expecting it, it'll go for the kill. It's certainly toothy enough to be that cunning and cruel. She stays put high above it, preferring to let it at least think it's going to have the first move. She tamps down the urge to strike first, to keep her weapons out of sight. Pink light still sparkles at her fingertips. She has to hope she's far enough away that it won't notice how eager she is.

Its tail flaps and flutters, then splits down the middle. With a flicker of diffuse light at its waist it sprouts legs, scarecrow-skinny and ending in fierce-looking hooks. Its hands, too, have something seriously sharp going on with them, though it still manages a tight grip on the metal bar as it walks hand over hand to the far side. Its legs sway as if it needs to fight for balance, as if gravity could even affect it if it slipped.

The ghost walks upside-down there and back again, then in a practiced motion twists so that its handstand is parallel to the bar. It stays there for a moment, motionless, then swings forward, spinning once—twice—three times—the entire goal post shaking with its exertion. It catches itself upside down again, its arms shaking as if it can actually feel the strain of muscle failure.

This surreal show is what her life has come to. What a night.

"You just gonna watch or are you gonna toss a few quarters down?" The ghost's voice is hoarse, lacking any real ire. Valerie blinks. She hadn't actually expected it to talk without prompting.

"Depends," she shouts down. "You just bored or looking to join the circus?"

The ghost _laughs,_ two bright bursts of noise that echo across the field and set her teeth on edge. It lets go of the bar, free-floats in a lazy half-circle so it can crouch on all fours and crane its muzzle up at her. "Oh man, _no,"_ it chuckles. "I did my time in the circus. I'm good."

Another surprise. The ghost's got jokes. With the way it looks she was expecting a lot of snarling and gnashing of teeth, maybe a death threat if it happened to feel particularly inspired. "Sorry, but I left my wallet in my other suit."

"Shame." Its toothy mug quirks like its got something to be smug about. "And I was all set to put on a show for the famous Valerie Gray."

She huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. "You know, I can't say I'm happy to hear how far my name's traveled through the Ghost Zone. I wear the helmet for a reason."

"I thought it was to protect those fragile human brains of yours." It grins widely. Eesh. She's got her feed zoomed in far enough to see its got far too many rows of teeth for comfort. She can pick out the huge fangs stretching his humanoid face into a skinned, hyena-like muzzle; smaller, squarer teeth behind them in two crooked rows; and bristling among the lot are the needle-thin fangs of some deep sea fish. It ought to chew its own tongue off just talking. That's ghosts for you though.

She rolls her eyes, plays it cool. "Funny."

"I try." It readjusts, plopping its skinny butt on the bar and letting its legs dangle. Seems it's committed to trying to put her at ease. "I'm afraid I can't speak for what's said on the spectral grapevine. I haven't been through the Ghost Zone in years."

"Yeah? Then you must have a really good hidey hole, 'cuz I've never seen you before."

Its bat-like ears twitch. "You sure about that?"

"Trust me," she says. "I'd remember seeing something like you creeping around."

It blanches, but a second later its face has smoothed again. Pretending she hadn't struck a nerve. So it's got vanity issues? Good to know.

The ghost shrugs, sinks into a languorous heap, stretching like a satisfied cat in a sunbeam. Even its legs melt away, the long white tail curling 'round and 'round the bar he balances easily on, almost hypnotically. Its a boneless creature, literally, but it moves in serpentine coils when it isn't hard angles. It moves like something with twice as many bones as it pretends to have. "What can I say? I've had some work done."

"Must've been some face lift," she deadpans. That earns her another staccato burst of laughter, too loud, too shrill. It laughs like a parrot mimicking humor it doesn't wholly understand.

When it's finished it asks, "Why haven't you attacked me yet?"

"Because you haven't done anything to make me think that'd be the right thing to do. Least, not yet."

"Huh."

She huffs. She's heard that kind of _huh _before, in and out of classrooms, in and out of her hunting suit. Judgmental little shit. "Did you _want _to start something, ghost?"

This time when it laughs it almost sounds honest, softer in its disbelief. "I'm really out of touch with the spectral grapevine if the infamous Valerie Gray doesn't shoot first and ask questions never nowadays."

Yeah, yeah. Like she hasn't gotten ribbed by plenty of others for being dead last—ah-hyuck hyuck _yuck—_to sign the treaty. "You seem to know an awful lot about me. I'm not sure I like that."

"Easy, now. I'm not stalking you or anything. I really did just get back to town, scout's honor."

Back to town. Not here for the first time, but _back. _This ghost doesn't look like any she's gone toe to toe with in the past, but then again some ghosts change their appearances like she changes clothes. The core of them, their obsessive, obnoxious, overwhelming _shtick _though; that doesn't change. At the end of the day ghosts _can't _change what they are. Monsters to the last. But she doesn't recognize this one based on that premise either. Truth be told she's hardly held conversations with ghosts that often. A handful of times at most, and reluctantly at that. Should that narrow it down? Should she be relieved that it doesn't?

She chooses to keep playing it safe. Pick the creepy little thing's brain a little. "Guess you must be out of the loop on how a lot of things work around here these days."

It grimaces. At least, she thinks it does. Its skeletal face doesn't do well with subtlety. "I... I heard the humans who made the Portal are interested in playing nicer."

That makes _her _grimace, and she's glad her visor's dark enough the ghost isn't likely to notice. "Don't talk to me about the _Fentons."_

It jerks back a little, surprised. "Well. Guess I touched a nerve there. Mind if I ask?"

Permission. It's asking permission? What is this thing's _deal?_ "The only reason we've got a ghost problem in Amity Park at all is because of those kooks. They should've been locked up years ago for endangering so many people. The attacks, the damages, lawsuits, the _injuries; _and that's nothing to say for the long-term effects of exposure to ectoplasm!"

It grins crookedly at her. "Hey, what's wrong with ectoplasm?"

"Nobody knows," she retorts. _"No one's _been inundated with the levels we get here, let alone for as long as it's gone on. Raw ectoplasm alone can kill a guy if he's in the wrong place at the wrong time. I've _seen _it happen. Then there's all the wild things some of these ghosts that come traipsing through here are capable of. At the rate we're going we're all probably going to die of some really twisted cancer in ten years if we're _lucky."_

It's definitely not subtle about how unimpressed it is. What a little _shit._ "Uh-huh. So what you're saying is, you're some kinda environmentalist?"

_"Please. _I just want their damn Portal taken out of their hands and into someone more trustworthy. But the Fentons made a deal with some government agency so it's all smooth sailing for them—"

Well. _Well._

"—I mean," she falters, and curses inwardly for that. Never show weakness to a ghost! "The Fentons and I used to see pretty eye-to-eye on the important things, up until their son went missing. After that they pulled a one-eighty. Now they're too scared to do more than slap a few wrists and hand the real nasty ghosts over to Walker."

"So you want to hand their Portal over to 'someone more trustworthy.' Guess that means Vlad Masters, huh."

"Of course." She floats a little closer, daring to hover over him directly. Fifteen feet is still plenty of space, if she needs it. "Working for Mister Masters has been the best decision I coulda done with my life. He's a good man and a brilliant scientist. Amity Park would be a whole lot safer if he were controlling the one reliable way in and out of the Ghost Zone."

"Damn," the ghost sighs. "And here I figured—"

"You figured _what?"_ She growls dangerously. Do it, freak. Say _one _bad thing about Mr. Masters. That'd be enough for her.

It sits up quickly, holding out its hands. "Never mind. Not my place to say, I guess. Sorry."

She blinks.

Did it—

Did it really back down that easy?

"Huh," she says, and puts a smile into her voice since her visor's obscuring the real thing. "Smart for a ghost, aren't you?"

Its grin is practically playful, all those teeth aside. "I've been known to rub a couple of brain cells together now and then."

She leans back on rear heel, lets her board drift down until she's level with it. Still far enough away to get the first shot off though, if it chooses to get bite-y. But the longer she talks to it, the less she finds that likely. This level seven, potentially a weak eight, has sat and talked with her of its own free will. Even knowing who she is, it's _joked _with her. It's been _friendly, _and though she's loath to admit it, friendliness from any corner has been hard to come by for—well. A long time.

She takes a better look at it, a _proper _look. Past the snow white memory of clothes and hair. Past the mockery of a skeleton, as hunched and wrong-angled as Wulf's. The predatory claws and teeth, the batlike ears and nose, the empty sockets where eyes should glow. She's been thinking of it as an _it, _but ghosts are no good at subtlety. The broad shoulders, flat chest and skinny waist, and the comparative deepness to its voice are all cues that it's less of an it and more of a _he. _

"What's your name?" She asks.

Its—_his—_long ears lay flat against his head. "You... seriously?"

"I don't got all night, ghost," she teases, and marvels at herself for that. The ghost, too, seems to realize how rare an interaction this must be. Is he really so out of the loop as he's pretending?

_"You _can call me Dee," he replies, and something in his voice is softer than before. He sounds the age he might have been, once upon a time.

"You _sure _this isn't your first time on this side of the Portal? That's not even a little intimidating."

"What makes you think I want to intimidate you?"

She snorts. "You look in a mirror lately?"

In one eerily fluid motion, in one blink of her eyes, the ghost uncoils from the goalpost and closes the distance between them. Too close. _Way _too close. Its long, long arms hover around her loosely, its long, long claws surely only inches from her shoulder blades. No time. There'd been _no time_ to react at all. Now she's stuck. _Trapped. _This close, he could gut her in one blow. This close, he could make her suffering _last._

He rasps, "How do you fight ghosts?"

"Wh-what?" Damn it, don't show fear! Don't ever show fear! She clenches her fists, feels the soothing prickle of energy begin to race under her skin. "I don't _start _the fights," she growls out, and with most ghosts she'd leave it at that. There's one or two exceptions, sure, but somehow one conversation has been enough to add this one to the list. It sticks like glass in her throat, but she says it anyway. "Not anymore."

"But you finish them."

"I _protect _this city! I protect the people who _live _here. I do what it takes to keep the _evil _leaking out of the damn Fentons' Portal at bay, what nobody else has the _guts _anymore to do! Mister Masters—"

"—has been good to you," he finishes smoothly.

_"You—!"_

He backs off.

Not far. Not _half _as far as she'd prefer. But he lowers his claws, gives her space to breathe. "Don't defend yourself to the likes of me. What do I know? I'm just some evil thing you'll hand over to Vlad if I try to bite the hand that's feeding me. Right?"

_"Don't_ put words in my mouth," she snarls.

"Tell me I'm wrong then." His skeletal grin turns menacing. Is she imagining it or are there even _more _teeth jammed into his snout now? "One little ghost did your dad wrong, so now every single ghost you come across has gotta pay?"

She gapes. "How did you—?" No, never mind. That's not important. Be angry. Be _righteous. _"How dare you!"

Dee leans in again, waggles his claws like he's not impressed by the crown of pink energy sparking silently above her head. "You never got even with Phantom before he vanished, so now you take out all your senseless aggression on ghosts just trying to blow off a little steam. And let me guess, when good old _Vladdie _asks you to deliver a particularly _nasty _ghost, you oblige without asking any questions. _Right?"_

When she eases her board back to gain even a few inches of distance, Dee follows. He still hasn't done more than the typical scare tactic, the kind of shit that from any other ghost—from any ghost she _knew—_would just make her roll her eyes. But she doesn't know this ghost. He's faster than her. He's got a grudge against Mr. Masters. Is that enough? Does she want to escalate this? Her scanner's not wrong. Dee is a strong level seven, maybe even a smoldering eight. If she starts this, she's sure she can finish it. But she might see the skyline burn for it.

"Mister Masters studies ghosts," she says tightly. "To find your weaknesses, to _stop _you from hurting humans—"

Dee _stretches, _bonelessly bridging the gap between them until his snout is so close a mimicry of breath fogs across her visor. What little expression his face can muster twists into something bitter she can't name. "Vlad's a monster," he hisses. "No better than I am."

_That's _enough.

A flicker of thought is all it takes to call a trio of power cubes above her shoulders. She fires before he can move, demanding as much output as they can muster. The cubes are little more than popguns to anything above a five, but he's still a small and crooked creature. It's enough to shock him, a warning shot to back _off. _That's all she meant it to be. Use the cubes as a distraction, gain enough distance to pull out something he'll have to take seriously, then figure out what actions he's thinking of taking against Mr. Masters. Easy.

But the ghost cries out, _recoils _like she hit something vital, and plummets like a sack of bricks to the AstroTurf below. She's left staring down at the bright light of him a dozen feet below, blinking stupidly at the slivers of white light flickering around his fetal shape.

That shouldn't have happened.

Despite his size he's some kind of monster, cut from the same cloth as any other burning shape that's tried to raze Amity Park to the ground. Her scanner _isn't _wrong. Valerie freezes, as stunned as she'd been the first time she'd really put the hurt into a ghost. _Hurt, _she thinks scathingly. As if they can actually feel pain. It's a trick. Of _course _it's a trick. That's all ghosts are good for. She thought he'd be a little smarter than to try something so obvious on her.

"Nice try," she snarls down at him. "But I've babysat kindergartners who put on a better act than this."

The flickering fades out. He'd sprouted legs again, somewhere between the falling and the landing. He stays where he is, curling up with his knees tucked up tight and his claws shielding his head. "I wasn't going to attack you," he replies dully, his hoarse voice muffled. She can barely hear the otherworldly echo to it.

What a drama queen.

She swoops down, dismisses her board to drop lightly a few feet away from him. "You must think I'm an idiot," she says coldly. "I've never _seen _you before. I don't know what your game is. For all I know you're planning world domination. Do you really think trying to guilt me into feeling _sorry _for you is gonna work? That was a _warning shot."_

"...I didn't expect it."

She scoffs. "I wasn't exactly trying to be subtle about it.

Dee _slams _one fist against the turf, green embers burning in his aura. "I'm _BLIND."_

"Wh—"

How was she supposed to know? She's never—he hadn't even _done _anything yet—

Stop. Don't show weakness to a ghost. It's a trick. It's a lie. That's what they _do._

She banishes her visor with a frustrated snarl, stomps forward to kick him _hard _in the shoulder and press her boot into his chest so he stays down. He _growls _at her, an inhuman noise that starts out a low rumble in his chest and ends in a hiss like pissed off cat. But he doesn't try to shove her off, doesn't try to make her bleed. He's got the strength to put a crater in the turf without even trying and still he lets her.

There are only empty sockets where eyes should glow, true, but logical anatomy doesn't apply to ghosts. It _doesn't. _Her visor had saturated the sockets a deep red before. In the pale light of his aura they look a raw, slippery shade of pink that makes her think of raw chicken. She's seen plenty of ghosts without eyes before. This doesn't mean anything. She waves her hand in front of his face, waggles her fingers, flips him off. No reaction.

"Are you done?" He demands.

She jumps back, summoning a short-barreled rifle in a bright flash of crimson and pink. His ears flick at the sound, but he remains sprawled where she kicked him.

"I'm gonna take a guess you've got something fun pointed at me," he sighs. "I'm also gonna guess you're looking at me with some kind of horrified and/or conflicted expression. I mean, you're not attacking me, sure, but you're not saying anything either. You're holding your breath right now. Please feel free to correct me here. I'm not working with all the context clues I used to have, and I'd appreciate not getting shot tonight."

"You—" She swallows to get the damn shake out of her voice. "You're really blind."

"I wasn't exactly trying to be _subtle _about it."

She opens her mouth to spit out something mean-spirited and defensive, but—hesitates. She lowers the gun. No way she's dumb enough to keep talking to him _unarmed. _"Okay. I deserved that."

"You sure did."

"I... I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You were just doing your job, right?"

_"Don't—!" _She stops again, swallows down her anger. It's not righteous now. It's just petty. "I don't need you to make excuses for me. I said I'm sorry and I mean it."

"It'll take more than that to hurt me. I just..." He chuckles softly. "I just wasn't expecting it. Should've known better. If I stand up are you gonna shoot me again?"

"Probably not." She puts a smile in her voice and hopes he believes it.

He floats to his feet, dusting himself off. "Valerie, I—I'm sorry too. For—well." He shrugs. "I'll get out of your hair. No attempts at world domination for me tonight. Pinkie promise."

She eyes his claws warily. "You can keep your pinkies to yourself, ghost."

He holds out his hand as green energy fizzes down his arm. She tenses, expecting an attack at last, but when the smoke clears the long claws and stubby paw have melted away. In their place is a mannequin's hand, shiny and stiff. "Best I can do," he says. "How 'bout we shake on a truce?"

"I..."

She's out of her depths on this one. She's only ever worked with two ghosts before, and those few times were disasters anyway. He could spring-load those claws clean through her arm if he wanted to. Or he could be offering an olive branch because sheer power aside, he knows he's got the disadvantage in any fight they might get into.

"Okay," she says, and takes his poor attempt at a human hand in hers. He jerks back a little, but the corners of his muzzle curl in a delighted smile. "Okay, Dee. I'm gonna give trusting you a shot. Don't make me regret it."

"No promises," he says, and vanishes from her sight and scanner both.


	6. Chapter 6

_And here we have Sam getting the reveal._

_Going through all this old fic has been really interesting, I must say. I'm still pleased with 80% of it, but the reason the whole thing isn't up yet is because I'm doing sort of a, ehhhh, quick and dirty second draft? So I'm sure there's still typos galore (beta who?), but though the meat and potatoes is all 2015!anthrop, the gravy is a bit more 2019!anthrop._

_I feel like the devolution of the story is apparent here too, though not as much as it will be for Tucker's initial chapter and beyond. Sam feels way too weak in her reaction for the actual reveal of Danny's blindness, but even now I'm not sure how else I'd write it. I think that was a strong contributing factor as to why I shelved the fic for "later," which eventually turned into "never." I wanted to give the reveals the same amount of screen time per character, but there really is no good way to do that without boring the reader, I think. So it goes._

_Thank you again for all the sweet comments. You guys are awesome. :)_

* * *

Sam's cell phone is ringing, and she's pretty sure she's going to strangle whoever it is that's dared to interrupt her hard-won beauty sleep. She doesn't have a clue what time it is, only that it's sometime way too damn early on a Saturday. She didn't get home until almost four a.m. because she was pounding the pavement after Cujo. Everyone swears up and down the stupid mutt listens to her best, and sure, _maybe,_ but that still doesn't mean he listens to her enough to stop terrorizing people at all hours. Mostly he just seems to foam a little less at the mouth around her. The big lovebug knows all sorts of commands, she knows he does, but he's never once obeyed her. All she can do is play with him until he wears himself out enough to trot off to the Ghost Zone on his own. She remembers when Danny would—

"Nngh."

Bad train of thought first thing. Better to take out her frustration on the idiot who's woken her up.

She slips a hand out of her quilt cocoon and paws around until she finds her phone. She uncovers just enough of her face to squint blearily at the blue-white square of light, blinking until her sight adjusts. Please don't be important, please don't be important, please don't be—

Ah, crap.

"Nngh," she repeats, but thumbs the answer button and taps speakerphone anyway. "Mr. Fenton," she starts, but has to clear her throat of sleep fug before continuing her rant, "You promised me the day off if I handled Cujo yesterday. I _did._ I got corrosive dog slobber in places I don't want to think about too hard and he used my favorite backpack as a chew toy, but _I handled him._ He's back in the Ghost Zone. He won't make an appearance for _weeks _thanks to me. So unless something really, really, really important's come up, I'm not getting out of bed until three p.m. at the _minimum. _Are we clear?"

_"Since when do you work for my dad?"_

She blinks. Well. That's definitely not Mr. Fenton. "...Huh?"

_"Still not a morning person, are you, Sam?"_

Her phone says FentonWorks. It _does._ "...Who is this?"

The boy—Man? They sound young, anyway—chuckles, soft and hoarse. _"Aw, c'mon. I know my voice was still cracking adorably last time we talked, but it hasn't gotten that deep."_

"I don't—" She knows this voice. She _does._ Her heart skips, her breath hitches. Please, don't be a dream. Please be real. _Please._ "—is this a joke?"

_"It could be, if you like, but mostly I'd prefer shaking my best friend out of bed so we can catch up. How 'bout it?"_

She bolts upright, blankets and pillows scattering. She can't—she doesn't trust—she _has _to make sure. "...Danny?"

_"Hi, Sam."_

"How did you—when did you—where—is this even—_what?"_

Another soft chuckle. Now she recognizes it; the tired, been up all night fighting ghosts laughter of his. Loose-limbed and bruised with exhaustion, grinning through a mouthful of red and green and not regretting it at all. _"Maybe finish asking one of those questions and I'll see about an answer."_

"Danny," she repeats reverently. And again, because she just can't believe it yet, _"Danny."_

_"That's my name, don't wear it out."_

"You can't—we thought—fuck, it's you, isn't it? It's really you?"

_"Maybe I should call back later when you're a little more lucid—"_

"Don't you _dare _hang up." She's on her feet now, tripping over last night's still-damp clothes and dragging her bangs out of her eyes. It's him. It's him. "When did you get back?"

"Two nights ago. Same night as my parents were out hunting, or whatever. I dunno, I didn't ask."

"They don't—it's not like that anymore," she says, and wonders why the shit she's talking about this instead of asking him roughly ten thousand relevant questions. "No experiments or dissections or anything else like that either. All that stuff's voluntary nowadays. Like, consent forms and everything kinda voluntary."

_"Huh,"_ he says. Neutrally. She can't make any sense of it, of what he thinks of that. _"What exactly does that—"_

"Never mind that. How'd you get away?"

_"Get a—"_ He breathes in sharply. _"...You knew?"_

His tone—accusatory, dismayed, hurting—is like a knife buried in her chest. She aches to hear him so miserable after three years—three _years—_of Freakshow's creepy mind control. She can't even imagine what it had been like. She's not sure she wants to. "Th-there were a couple witnesses." She digs through her dresser for clean clothes, settles on a purple turtleneck, loud socks, and the first bra she puts her hand on. "A senior working at the Baskin-Robbins you fought Lydia in, and some guy in our year who'd been trying to record Phantom for some reason. He got most of the fight on camera."

Danny mutters darkly under his breath. She must have misheard him, because it sounds an awful lot like, _"Glow sticks."_

"What?"

_"Never mind. Did you ever tell my parents? They haven't mentioned anything about Lydia, the recording, or anything else."_

Bra on, shirt hanging around her neck, she trips again reaching for her deodorant. She really ought to clean up in here. Or at least draw the curtains. "Of course we did! The day after Tucker and I saw the video Wes posted on YouTube we told them—" She winces. This isn't anything like the hundred ways she's imagined this conversation going. She never thought she'd feel this guilty. "—everything. About the accident, and all the ghost fighting, and—and everything. I'm sorry. I didn't want to, but Tucker—"

"No, it's okay. Made catching up with them a lot easier, actually."

...Seriously?

She didn't think he'd be so casual about it. Dismissive, even. His parents used to threaten to do all kinds of horrible things to Phantom if they got their hands on him. He'd been genuinely scared to tell them anything. "Danny—"

_"Hey, how about we all get together today? You, me, and Tuck?"_

"I—yeah. Yeah, of course. Where, uh, where do you want to meet up?"

_"Eh, I'll leave that to you two. D'you mind calling him? I can't remember his number and I don't want to bother my parents right now."_

Bother? Like they'd be bothered after thinking he was dead for real for three years? "Sure, yeah."

_"Cool. Oh, you must have your driver's license by now, yeah?"_

"Yeah? Why?"

He laughs again, a little too loudly and definitely forced. Static crackles across the connection. _"Think you could pick me up?"_

Sam pauses in buttoning her black jeans to stare at her phone, set haphazardly on her dresser. "Uh. Sure? But uh, why not just, y'know, fly?"

Silence.

Shit. Open mouth, insert foot. "I—I mean, I don't have a problem with that, yeah! It's just, y'know—"

_"It's weird. I know."_

No explanation, no stammering justification. Not even an apology she'd have to tell him wasn't necessary. "...Are you okay?"

He does the worst thing possible. He hesitates. _"...Sam, I—"_

"Fuck," she blurts. "Did Lydia—did _Freakshow—" _Her hands find the edge of her dresser and _squeeze. _"Are you dead? Is that why you took so long to come home? Did they—"

_"Sam,"_ he says in a voice that's entirely too calm, considering. _"Stop."_

She shuts her chattering mouth so quickly her teeth click. "Please," she whispers. "Just—tell me you're okay."

There's a long, frustrated sigh. _"I... Christ. I'm not dead, alright? I'm fine. I am, but—"_ But. _"—augh. Ugh. Guh. I don't want to do this over the phone. Can you come get me? Please?"_

"Okay," she says numbly. Something's wrong. She knows something's wrong. Three years. What could have happened to him in three years? "Just gimme a few minutes to turn into a person here, then I'll be right over."

_"No problem. Seriously, take all the time you need. Corrosive dog slobber is no joke."_

She laughs, and regrets it immediately. It sounds fake even to her own ears. "Right."

_"Thanks, Sam."_

"Don't thank me yet. I'm gonna punch you right in the teeth when I get there!"

He laughs too, and unlike her own it sounds honest. Easy and carefree. _"Yeah, I deserve that. Bye, Sam."_

"See you soon!"

_"...yeah."_

He hangs up. Sam finds herself just standing there, grinning at her phone as the screen goes dark. Three years. She'd just about given up—but he's here. He's _alive._ He said so, and she believes it.

It isn't until she's in her car fussing with the heater that she realizes Danny didn't answer her question. He didn't tell her how he got away. Should she...? No, never mind. He probably just wanted to hold off so he doesn't have to repeat himself needlessly. That's all. And besides, she doesn't care how he got away. She's just happy he did. She's just happy he's _back._

She pulls Tucker's cell up and calls it as she pulls out onto the street. He picks up on the fifth ring, panting heavily. _"Hey now. I didn't think I'd hear from the Sleeping Horror 'til sunset on the third day."_

"Very funny. Look, we need to meet up ASAP."

_"Ghost attack?"_

"No—"

_"Then can it wait? I'm doing a group thing right now and Tetslaff is giving me the evil eye—"_

"Danny's back."

_"—I don't want to get on her... bad... Uh. Sam?"_

"Yeah?"

_"I think I've begun to hallucinate vividly all of a sudden. Can you repeat what you just said?"_

"Danny's back," she repeats. Her free hand is crabbed on the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles hurt. "I just got off the phone with him. I'm going to go pick him up from FentonWorks right now. Danny's _home."_

Tucker swears loudly. _"I—okay. Okay. Is—he's not... is he...?"_

"He's alive."

More swearing, this time sounding far more relieved. _"Jesus. Okay. Good. Great. That's—"_ Someone on his end barks his last name. _"Shit, hold on."_

"Tucker, wait—!"

_"Okay, okay!"_ His voice muffles for a minute as he talks to whoever it is, then comes back. _"Sorry. Yeah?"_

"We were right." It's like swallowing hot lead to admit it. "Freakshow had him this whole time."

_"Oh god, you're kidding."_

"I wish I was."

_"How is he?"_

"I dunno. He sounded..." She hesitates, thinking of the rasp to his voice. Like an old man's, almost. Or like someone hoarse from screaming. Probably not something to share with Tucker. Shet settles on, "Exhausted. He wants to catch us both up. Think you can get away?"

_"What, like I'm not gonna ditch running laps to go share a tearful reunion with my best friends? Damn, how much of a dick do you think I am?"_

She laughs, ignoring how it sticks in her throat. "You don't want me to answer that honestly."

_"Rude. Where d'you wanna meet?"_

"I was thinking your place. Your parents are still out of town, aren't they?"

_"Yeah, sure. Go ahead and let yourself in if you get there before I do." _There's more yelling on his end that makes him sigh. _"Ugh. Okay. I really gotta go now, Sam. I'll get away as soon as I can."_

"Sounds good. See you soon."

_"Sure thing—oh, and Sam?"_

"Yeah?"

_"Please don't punch him in the face."_

She laughs again, and it's easier this time to mean it. Tuck's good like that, for all that they fight otherwise. "Well darn it, I already warned him I would."

_"Well, then never mind! Can't have you breaking your promises to him first thing, right?"_

_"Bye,_ Tucker."

More yelling on his end, and his snarky goodbye is cut off halfway.

Sam tosses her phone onto the passenger seat and turns her full attention back to driving. She's already halfway there. If she steps on the gas just that little bit harder to shave another minute or two off, well, it's early on a Saturday morning. There's practically nobody out yet.

The RV is parked as haphazardly as ever just outside FentonWorks, and the rest of the curb is taken up by their neighbors' cars. She bites down on a frustrated curse and loops back around to park across the street. She doesn't bother locking her car, practically sprinting for the familiar front door—

It opens before she can let herself in, and there he is.

He's taller, is the first thing she latches onto. Broad-shouldered too, and he's finally grown into his hands and feet. He's bundled up in enough black layers to pass for a regular at the Skulk 'N' Lurk, and he's got cheesy reflective sunglasses on that don't do a thing to distract from the gray pallor of his skin. She stares and doesn't feel the slightest bit guilty, finding all the subtle yet startling changes compared to what she's memorized from well-creased photographs. The hard angles of his too-thin face, his clumsily cut hair, the taut tendons in his neck, scars he hadn't had before. He should look ridiculous, like somebody playing at Goth for a costume party or something. But he doesn't. He looks... calm. At ease. She can't remember him ever looking so comfortable in his own skin.

If she walked past him on the street, Sam's not sure she would have recognized him.

"There you are," he says, and leans forward to present his cheek. A scar on his lip stretches weirdly when he gives her a sly grin, burning white. "Well come on. Where's my welcome home punch?"

She can't speak. Everything she's wanted to say, everything she's dreamed of saying, curdles on her tongue. There's too much, and not enough, and she doesn't know where to begin besides. So she rushes up the last two steps, wraps her arms around him and buries her face in his shoulder. "You're back," she says, ignoring the prickle in her eyes. "You're really _back."_

He goes rigid, hissing surprise, but relaxes after a beat. He returns the hug carefully, like he thinks she's made from tissue paper. "Aw, hey. Don't get all weepy on me. I finally got my parents to stop crying and get some work done. I'd appreciate a break from the waterworks."

"S-sorry, it's just—"

"I know." He pulls away just as carefully, fumbling behind him to shut the door. Light catches off his ears and a bubble of incredulous laughter escapes Sam.

"You pierced your ears." She reaches out to touch one of the gold earrings, faltering when he twitches. He recovers before she can apologize, mustering a crooked, slightly nervous grin.

"You like them? I had a sixth one too, but it got ripped out at some point." He gestures to his left ear. There's a notch in the lobe, badly healed, that makes Sam wince. "I thought about letting them all heal, but I dunno. They've kinda grown on me."

"You look great." Damn, her voice has gone all wobbly. She hopes he doesn't notice. "And black is definitely your color."

The grin loses its nervous edge. "I bet you say that to all the boys. Where's Tucker?"

"On his way home. We're, um, we're going to meet him there since his parents are out of town at a—uh, a seminar. Or something." Why is she stuttering so much?

"Well, then what are we standing around here for? I've got like, a million questions for you guys, and I bet you do too."

Sam grins. _That's _the Danny she remembers; cheery sarcasm and a willingness to dive right into the mess, no matter what it was. "You bet. And you're not going anywhere until you've told us _everything. _C'mon!" She grabs him by the wrist—whoa, he's freezing!—and starts hauling him bodily down the steps.

Danny yelps. "Sam! N-no, wait—wait, stop—_stop!"_

Her arm goes numb to the elbow as his weight vanishes; she stumbles down the last step. She turns to ask what's up with him but the words die in her throat. Danny—

Danny's fallen to the steps, collapsed in a rigid heap of skinny limbs, his head squeezed between his hands. His breath rattles out of him in raw, ragged heaves as his unlaced boots scrape, scrape, scrape against the concrete. He's... in a split second he's—is this a panic attack? What—what did she do? What should she do?

"I can't," Danny gasps, folding further in on himself, folding up like the sharp angles of a paper crane. "Don't—don't _do _that. Don't suh-surprise me like that. I—I _can't."_

"Danny—" She reaches out, unsure if she ought to touch him again. Better not. She drops her hand, stands there like an idiot because she can't figure out what else to do. Danny had never done anything like this, before. "I... okay. Sorry. I won't do that again. Are you okay?"

He doesn't relax so much as he curls up enough to rest his forehead against his knees. Muffled laughter shakes his shoulders. "Fuck," he laughs. "I'm blind, Sam."

What?

_What?_

"Uh," she tries, and can't get any further than that.

He breathes out explosively, wrenching himself out of his fetal position to sit ramrod straight. He gives her a sickly grin. Were his teeth always that sharp? "I'm blind," he repeats in a tight voice, like he might just throw up. "Freakshow, he…. I can't see anymore."

Oh, she thinks feebly. He's serious.

She forces her jellied legs back up the steps, sits down beside him and grips the edge like gravity might call in sick today. She watches the tendons in his pale hand flex and relax, flex and relax, as he wrestles his breathing under control. His hand, she realizes numbly. There's something wrong with it. His fingers—

Never mind. Not now. Not now.

"I'm sorry," she repeats quietly. She doesn't know what else to say.

He huffs thickly, raises his head to—not look at her. Not if what he told really is true. Just—he turns to face her, tilts his head. Listening intently. "Don't be," he says. The rasp has crawled back into his voice, lowering and sharpening it. He barely sounds like himself. "It's not—you couldn't have done anything. Nobody could have."

No, that—that has to be wrong. Guilt burns and twists her stomach, though she does her best to keep her voice level. "If we'd told our parents sooner we might have had a better shot at finding you, o-or if we'd told the police—"

"Stop," he says. This time without the high note of panic threaded through it. "Even if you'd found me that night it wouldn't have done any good. I'd still be blind and freaking out over—what? A couple of stairs I wasn't expecting?"

He laughs, two sharp barks, and Sam _recoils._ It's been over three years since the whole Circus Gothica fiasco, but there's no way she'll ever be able to forget the awful bray of Freakshow's laughter. "Danny—"

"I'm okay," he says, which isn't what she was looking for at all. "I know you want—details. But it's—_fuck, _Sam. This is hard enough as it is. I wasn't kidding about my parents. They've been crying all over me since I got back. I don't want to repeat myself any more than I have to, okay?"

"But—"

His expression thins. Even with those ridiculous sunglasses on she knows he's giving her the puppy eyes. Or—well. "Can we go to Tucker's now? Please?"

She should—not let it go, no. But she should be kind. He sounds so meek, plaintive. He can't just get up and walk away. He can go back in the house with his weeping parents or stay here with her, and he's already told her which one he'd rather do.

But she's never been any good at being kind.

"Danny," she says, miserable, "Why did he—do _this _to you?"

His scarred lip curls. There's a long, cold moment where she thinks he might just stand up and go back inside after all, but then he asks, "Remember that staff he had?"

"Yyyes? But it broke when you saved me."

"There's more than one way to skin a cat," he says.

She shivers.

"He wanted revenge," he goes on. "And he got it. I couldn't fight him this time around. He made me forget everything. _Everything,_ Sam. My family, you and Tucker, my name... everything. If Lydia hadn't freed me, I'd still be in that cage."

_"Cage?"_

"Shit, it's not—" He grimaces, mentally backtracking. "It wasn't as bad as bad as you're thinking."

"Danny," she tries, but he cuts her off.

"Don't tell my parents, okay? I haven't gotten into any real details with them yet. I... I'm trying to figure out how to without it devolving into tears too much."

She nods, then remembers. _He can't see her._ "Okay," she chokes out.

He reaches out, bumps his fingers against her knee, her thigh, her forearm, squeezes her fist with a smile she thinks is supposed to be reassuring. He's so cold. It's like someone's pressing a soda can fresh out of the fridge against her knuckles. "Let's get going, okay?"

"Okay," she says. She doesn't trust herself to say anything else.


	7. Chapter 7

In Tucker's opinion, he's doing a pretty good job of not freaking out. He didn't wreck his dad's car on his way home from Central Park. He didn't fumble his keys at the front door, he didn't curse to find an empty house when he'd hoped to find Sam and—

And he took a shower and didn't slip. He got dressed with only a modicum of shaky hands he could pretend were the fault of hunger rather than anticipation-slash-dread. He might have dropped a glass in the kitchen, sure, but he didn't nick his fingers cleaning it up. He's only hiccuped out a few high, thin curses since he's been home, nervous jitters rattling down his spine.

He's fine. He's definitely fine.

Danny's back, that's all.

Danny's _back._

He opts to pace the living room instead of attempting something so restrained as sitting. His bare feet hiss along the rug as he twists the cap of a water bottle he'd grabbed out of the refrigerator. Half-open, half-shut, half-open, half-shut. Just to have something to do with his hands.

Where _are _they?

He twists the cap off fully, gulps down a cold mouthful of water, twists it back, and picks up pacing again.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

The bottle is nearly empty when there's—_finally—_a knock at the door. He tosses the bottle over his shoulder, hears it thump against a couch cushion. The cap's on, he thinks. It won't leak, probably, who gives a shit.

He wrenches the door open.

Sam's there, of course. Looking worn out from last night, from dealing with Cujo, from only getting a few hours of sleep. Her face is pinched though, rather than simply scowling. Worry? Fear? He can't tell. There are dark smudges around her eyes; more than what yesterday's makeup can justify. It makes sense that she looks like hell, doesn't it? He woke up to a half dozen texts from her, increasingly frustrated and caps locked as her night wore on and Cujo proved to be as much of an asshole ghost mutt as ever.

But she's not alone. Of course she's not alone. She told him she was going to pick Danny up, so of course Danny's a black and gray shadow just behind her.

Danny—

The sight of Danny sends a chill right down Tucker's spine, twists his guts into knots even before he's really had enough time to take in the guy standing on his doorstep.

Danny's dressed in heavy layers, all black, wearing a pair of shades that look like he stole them off somebody cosplaying a character out of the Matrix. Danny looks—

—there's only a few seconds he can stand there and just stare, really—

—it's him. It's really Danny. It's really his best friend standing there. But—

But maybe Tucker's just gotten used to the Danny left behind in old photographs. Frozen at fourteen, traces of baby fat still softening his face and a year late on the growth spurt Mr. F's generous frame promised. Danny now, here, standing right in front of him, is recognizable in the unsettling familiarity of a police artist's mock up. A loose, second-hand sketch transposed into clunky CGI; a mockery of the reality it's trying to mimic. One look is enough for Tucker's brain to scream _uncanny valley,_ just as it so often does with the wild-eyed and shrieking ghosts that come tearing out of the Fenton Portal in search of the kind of fun that ends in blood. He has to force himself to hold his ground, and isn't that a half dozen kinds of bullshit? To be instinctively _scared _of his own best friend?

But Danny's a sickly gray beneath a sun-beaten tan. He's got his dad's jawline and his mom's cheekbones jutting out at uncompromising, hungry angles. He's got a crater of an acne scar at one temple, a white slash across his lower lip, a _chunk _missing from one ear. Danny's hunched shoulders are in a bitter civil war with the easy smile on his face.

He's never looked more like a ghost.

_"Danny," _slips out of Tucker's mouth on its own volition; half-reverent, half-dismay.

But Danny's mouth yawns in a wide and happy grin. Then he's edging around Sam, knocking his knuckles against the doorframe as he rushes up and scoops Tucker up in a hug that lifts them both clear off their feet. _"Tucker!"_

Tucker yelps laughter, as startled as he is relieved as he kicks his feet in mock-protest. "Jesus, you're _freezing!"_

"And you're—! What the hell is this?" Danny sets him down and wraps one icy hand around his bicep. "You're practically _beefy!"_

"I wouldn't go _that _far," Tucker replies, playing at demure while he pretends he isn't pleased to hear Danny I-can-pick-a-school-bus-up-with-one-hand Fenton is impressed by his guns. He shrugs Danny's cold hand off, grinning like a loon. Danny's _back._ "But being one-half of the head of Amity Park's teen militia kind of comes with this whole expectation of being in, y'know, _not _horrible shape? So I've had to set an example to the troops."

"Wait, what?" Danny laughs, hooking his thumbs in his hip pockets and grinning right back at Tucker. _"Militia? _I never pegged you for the rank and file, man, let alone being in _charge _of that shit."

Behind him, Sam slips in and shuts the door behind her without so much as an amused scoff. Samantha Manson, not taking potshots? She must be _really _tired. Or maybe something happened? Sam's looking from him to Danny, biting her lip with this absolutely _miserable _look in her eyes. Yeah, okay. Something definitely happened. Tucker'll let her spill the beans on whatever it is in her own time. He knows better than to push.

"Yeah, well, somebody had to step up, and your parents have had their hands full with the protect-and-defend junk. Sam and me? We stepped in to take care of the offensive." He winks at her, but she doesn't roll her eyes like he'd expected her too. She looks kind of like she wants to puke.

"For real?" Danny smiles, easy and familiar—or, no. Familiar in its shape, but still set uncomfortably in the uncanny valley. His mouth is too wide, canines are too sharp, his teeth stained and translucent. He's a bad replica of himself. "Sam didn't mention any of that. That's great, really. I'm glad you guys have been handling things without me around."

"Well I dunno about _'handling.'_" he laughs, giving Sam ample opportunity to step in with her usual droll jokes about the absolute shitshow most of the last three years have been, but she stays mum. "But I mean, the town's still here and mostly in one piece, so I guess that's a win. But forget about all that; what about _you?"_

He can't tell with the shades on, but he thinks Danny's making a big show of rolling his eyes. "What _about _me, dude? I've been Freakshow's bitch for three years. It sucked, now I'm free. Big whoop."

_"'Big whoop?' _Man, come on, we were worried half to death over you. I mean, we knew Lydia was the one who took you, but we never heard anything from Freakshow, so—"

"So you didn't know what to think," Danny finishes. Far too gently, considering. "Or do. I know. It's okay."

Tucker shudders a breath in and out, relieved and guilty and—and _torn up. _Danny's a mess. Danny's been through hell. One look's enough to tell him that much. Danny went through hell because they didn't know how to find him to save him. How can he feel anything but guilty? "Jesus, Danny. What _happened?"_

Danny shrugs. "What didn't? Freakshow got me again, and this time he made sure I couldn't shake him loose. If Lydia hadn't gone and changed her mind..." His mouth quirks halfway between amusement and a grimace. "Well, I sure as hell wouldn't be standing here right now, that's for sure."

Beside them, Sam looks at Tucker with this wild-eyed expression, like she's trying to tell him something grossly important with just the stretch of her eyebrows alone and—

Holy shit, has she been _crying? _

Tucker's known her since middle school but he's only ever seen her cry once before, and _that _was late after a particularly horribly botched patrol that had ended with calling 911 and a body bag and the mutual admittance that it wasn't likely Danny was ever coming back. He'd been assuming her red-rimmed eyes had been caused by her relief, except her mouth is pinched to a miserable white knot and her fingers are all tangled and squeezing. Something is terribly wrong, but he has no idea what it could be.

Well, his house, his rules. If he's gonna host this teary-eyed reunion, it's gonna be a cozy one, come hell or high water. "Come on," he says, jerking a thumb toward the kitchen. "Let me whip up some cocoa or something. Hell of a cold snap out there, huh?"

"Is it?" Danny asks mildly. Tucker gives him some serious side-eye that seems to slide right off him.

"Yeah, yeah, I know you don't get cold." Except he _is _cold right now. He ought to be a shivering, teeth-rattling mess of let's-get-him-to-a-hospital levels of hypothermia for how cold to the touch he is. But he's just standing there, smiling blandly with his head cocked at a bemused angle. Sam takes a hesitant half-step towards the kitchen but doesn't go any farther, her eyes darting nervously to Danny. She's hovering. She _never _hovers. Tucker gets that Danny's been—_gone, kidnapped, mind-controlled, stolen away—_for a long time, but why the hell is she acting so bummed now that he's back?

"You comin'?" He asks. "Jeez, you're both acting like you've never been in my house before."

Danny cackles out two practically delighted syllables of laughter. "Gimme a break, dude. I've only been _kidnapped _for three years. Forgive me for not remembering Foley house etiquette—"

"Danny's blind!" Sam blurts out.

Danny—

—stills.

His easy smile turns brittle, his lazily gesturing hand crabs to a tense knot of claws. Something in him pops; his neck or knuckles or maybe a knee. Tucker can't tell.

"Thank you, Sam!" Danny says far too loudly, far too brightly. "I was planning on breaking it to him gently so we wouldn't have a repeat of twenty minutes ago, but sure! Let's do it your way! Right to the point and damn the consequences, right?"

Sam's face has gone white, and that could be from shock or misery or shame or who knows what else, but her eyes flash with unmistakable anger. "Oh, I'm _sorry, _but how much longer were you planning on playing pretend? How much longer were you going to act like nothing was wrong? How much longer were you going to _lie _to your best friend?"

"Kindness isn't lying," Danny retorts coldly.

Tucker blinks. _Fighting?_ Sam and Danny never fought, not really. It was always _him _and Sam at each other's throats, picking fights over the dumbest shit. Danny was their mediator, their buffer, the common sense their sparks of indignation or righteousness always clung to. They've chafed against each other so much over these past three years without him. They've made do without him, trying to work together without friction in the face of a greater danger, but it was never good enough. Not really. He doesn't—

He has no idea what's going on.

"What?" He asks meekly.

Danny sighs. "Sorry, Tuck. Sam's telling the truth. I'm one hundred percent totally and completely blind."

He says it so calmly. So matter of fact. He's just _standing _there, waiting for Tucker to pick his jaw up off the floor and say something. But Tucker—

Tucker is speechless. His head's full of buzzing, startled static, and his tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth. He looks at Sam. He looks at Danny. He expects a punchline, a grandstanding _just kidding!_ that he'll pretend to spite them for to cover up his relief. But they just stand there. Sam wrings her hands and Danny grins like he's in a toothpaste commercial, flashy and false. They just stand there, waiting for Tucker to get his act together and _react._

"You—" He clears his throat, swallows, tries again. "You're serious."

"Yup," Danny says, as light as if they're chatting about the weather. "So hey, if you wanna nudge me in the direction of your coat rack or whatever, I'd appreciate it."

"You're—" Shut it, Foley. Nobody likes a broken record. "What—what _happened?"_

Danny shrugs as he tugs his leather jacket off, folding it neatly over one arm. "I told you. Freakshow wanted to make sure I couldn't shake him off this time around, so he found something better than that staff of his I broke." He angles his head toward Sam, holding his jacket out. "D'you mind? Tuck's gone all tongue-tied and honestly, I can't remember the layout here at all."

"O-oh. Sorry, yeah." She fumbles to grab his jacket, stepping carefully around Danny to place it on the coat rack not two feet to his right.

"Uh—" Blind? Blind? Like, seriously, _blind? _"How about that cocoa?"

"Sound great," Danny says. "Lead the way."

Tucker hesitates, looking at Sam for guidance. She looks as mortified as he feels, so clearly she's still wrapping her head around—around _this _as much as he is. He swallows to keep his voice steady. "Do you, uh, need to hold onto me, or...?"

"Relax," Danny says with that same familiar, unfamiliar flash of too-sharp teeth. "You've got wood floors and I've got great hearing. Just lemme know if I'm about to trip over something, otherwise I'll be fine."

"Okay," Tucker says for lack of anything better to say.

He leads them both to the kitchen, watching nervously over his shoulder. Sam stays glued to Danny's side as he moves with slow, calculated steps, his hands raised to feel out any waist-level obstacles. He's. He's not kidding, is he? He really is blind?

What did Freakshow _do _to him?

At least it's not far to the kitchen and the little four-chaired dining table in the corner. Danny navigates the distance fine, bumping his hand against the nearest chair with a pleased little hum. "Now, was that so hard?" He says coyly, pulling the chair out and settling in with a graceless heap of angles along the tabletop. He waves one hand in Tucker's direction, waggling his eyebrows. "Chop chop, I demand a cup of hot choc for this delightful conversation, stat."

"On it," Tucker replies mechanically. He turns away to fetch three mugs and all the fixings for his mom's closely guarded secret stovetop cocoa. He pretends not to hear Sam hiss instructions at Danny or Danny's irritable huffs. Once the saucepan's sorted he turns around to face them, just in time to hear something clatter across the table. They're sat with Danny directly across from him and Sam on Danny's adjacent left, and in the middle of the table is a ruby amulet on a fat gold chain.

Oh, but _that _particular shade of red has never boded well when it comes to ghosts.

"Is that what Freakshow used on you?"

Funny, how calm he manages to sound with his heart hammering fit to burst in his chest. Mind controlled for three fucking _years._ Fuck.

Danny shakes his head. "Uh-uh. This amulet is what he used on the other ghosts. He didn't get his hands on it until I'd been under his control for, eh, a few months? I think I helped him get it, but all that's kind of fuzzy." He shrugs. "A lot of details are still fuzzy for me. Dunno if I'll ever get it all back. I know we were somewhere in eastern Europe when he got his hands on this thing."

"Europe?" Sam echoes. "You've been in Europe this whole time?"

That'd explain why it had been so hard to find anything on Freakshow, but Danny shakes his head. "No. We came back to the States... last spring? Summer? I dunno. I just remember it being really hot."

"So, fleeing the country after busting out of prison and kidnapping-slash-mind-enslaving a minor makes sense to me," Tucker says, and pauses to share a mutual wince with Sam over how flippant that came out, "But why Europe?"

"For this thing," Danny replies, tapping the chain. "I remember him monologuing at me and Lydia about it constantly. All this shit about his family history and how he came from a long line of like, ghost whisperers or whatever." His mouth thins, disgust twisting his face into something cruel and wholly un-Danny-like. "The Showenhowers have been putting leashes on ghosts for a long, _long _time."

"He wrote a book about the paranormal and supernatural," Sam pipes up. "I found it, um, maybe about a year after you were kidnapped? Took me a while to figure out he wrote it though. It's this big encyclopedia of spectral history and artifacts. It's been a while since I've cracked it open, but this necklace looks familiar. I think it's in the book."

"Huh," Danny says. "That sounds pretty useful. Could I borrow that from you?"

"Sure—uh. I can—read it to you, if you want?" Even though he's got his eyes on the stove Tucker can perfectly picture Sam's _open mouth, insert foot_ wince. But Danny just chuckles.

"Thanks for the offer, but it's for my parents. I asked them to take a look at these things for me, to see if there's any way to outline their energy readings so they can track down anything else like them. If there's even one other creepy supernatural gizmo that can control ghosts, I want to destroy it."

Tucker glances at Sam. Oh good, she looks as perturbed by the vehemence in Danny's voice as he feels. He loves it when they're on the same page.

"So, Freakshow got this necklace after he kidnapped you. What'd he make Lydia use on you?" He stirs cinnamon into the saucepan, the better to hide his _oh, shit_ wince from Sam. Not like Danny can see it, right? Fuck. "I—we knew Lydia was the one to attack you, but, uh—"

"Relax. Sam said there were witnesses that night." Tucker hears a hiss of metal and turns in time to see Danny pull a thinner chain out of his collar. A pendant flashes in the late morning sunlight pouring in through the window. No, make that a vial, and there's something that same worrying shade of red tinkling around inside. "Some kid recorded our fight and everything, yeah?"

"Yeah," Tucker confirms. "The quality was shit, but it was clear enough. Wes—the guy who filmed it—missed some stuff once you two phased through into Baskin-Robbins, but he got the tail end of things through the glass front. She did something to you that made you pass out, then she flew off with you."

"Basically. That's what I remember, anyway."

Sam reaches out to touch the vial dangling from Danny's fingers. Danny flinches, pulling away and gripping the vial tightly to his chest.

"Sorry," they say at the same time.

Danny's the one to relax first, dropping the vial so it dangles again. Weird red light splashes across the dining table, unrealistic and creepy as _shit _in Tucker's experienced opinion. "It's okay. Here. See anything like these things in your book?"

"Um, I'm not sure—"

The saucepan boils over, spilled milk hissing. All three of them jump. Tucker hastens to lower the temperature, stirring in a little more milk and a few liberal drops of vanilla. Sam's laugh is too high, too nervous, and though Tucker keeps his eyes trained on the stove it's all too easy to hear the tinkle of the chain as it exchanges hands.

"Danny." Sam's voice is too thin, trembling with a fear that doesn't fit her at all. "Are these _needles?"_

"Oh, I did _not _just hear that," Tucker says loudly before Danny can say yea or nay. "Time out. Time _out._ I don't want to hear any of this until I've got marshmallows spilling out of my ears."

Danny laughs. When Tucker glances over his shoulder he can see Danny's weirdly twisted hands held up in mock-defense. Jesus. What even happened to his hands? Never mind. That can wait for now. If there's going to be any talk about needles and mind control, Tucker wants—_needs,_ if he's honest with himself—to be sitting down. He still hasn't gotten over his phobia of anything remotely related to hospitals, and frankly he's not in any hurry to start on that, thanks ever so.

He hears Sam murmur to Danny while he juggles mugs and nearly-boiling cocoa, though he doesn't hear exactly what she says. Danny huffs again, so she's probably needling—_ngh, _talk about a bad choice of words—to be honest. With a little help from Mom's goofy bee-patterned oven mitts he gets all the mismatched mugs distributed around the table with a shallow bowl of marshmallows set in the middle, right beside Freakshow's freaky amulet. Now that he's sat at the table he can see a wide crack through the largest facet. Does Danny even know it's there, considering he's—

Ngh.

Tucker can't wrap his head around it—_that—_yet. The sunglasses aren't an aesthetic affectation, are they? His eyes; what the hell did Freakshow do to him to _blind _him?

Honestly, he's not sure he wants to know the answer to that.

Honestly, he knows he owes Danny every discomfort he can give him, for all the years they failed to bring him home.

"Okay," he says with forced calm. "Needles. Mind control. Blindness. Not a lot of conclusions a guy can draw here, and _hoo boy,_ I don't like any of 'em."

Danny's expression turns grim. It's the most honest he's looked since Tucker opened the front door. "Nailed it in one, Tuck. Good job."

Sam's spinning the vial in her hands, face tight like she's expecting the needles to prick her fingers through the glass. "So, what? Freakshow blinded you out of—what, revenge?"

"Basically, yeah," Danny concedes. "But also not quite. I never had any opportunity to ask him much, but the application of those needles seemed to be—hmm. Kind of the cherry on top for him. While they were in my eyes I could see fine—as long as he _wanted _me to see, anyway—and it was removing them that blinded me for keeps."

Tucker immediately regrets the three marshmallows he's swallowed.

Sam frowns at the vial. How the hell is she so calm about this? "There are four needles in here."

"Well, he had to control his favorite puppet somehow, didn't he?"

Tucker flinches. Sam does too, and he's relieved to see she does. Danny keeps using this dissonant tone; this too-light, too-disinterested voice. Like if he pretends hard enough that they aren't talking about the twisted fucker who _blinded _him, Tucker and Sam won't be as horrified by the things he's been through.

Tucker decides here and now that he's not having any of that. "Jesus," he says. "Don't say it like that, man."

"Like what?" Danny reaches out, hesitant, his head not moving even a little, until he knocks his hand against the mug Tucker put near him. He wraps his hands around it like a lifeline, breathing in deeply.

"Like—like this is all a _joke._ Like you're telling us some stupid shit the Box Ghost pulled when we weren't there."

Danny leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. His mouth opens in a mute snarl—shit, were his teeth that long a second ago?—before he seems to get control of himself. His voice is low, controlled, so calm it just can't be called human. He sounds as automated as the generic woman's voice on an answering machine. "For starters, it was Lydia who put the needles in me. She was also the one who pulled them _out _of me. I've been free for months. I've had plenty of time to deal with everything Freakshow put me through. I've talked it out with the other ghosts he controlled, the ghosts just as trapped as I was. I've been angry, and I've been sad, and I've been terrified too. I've _dealt _with this. I've had plenty of time to deal with all the shit that bastard put me through. So forgive me if I'm not brimming over with with all the woe-is-me misery you seem to be expecting."

"Can you blame us?" Sam asks. "I mean—you look _awful. _You're—that sick bastard _blinded _you. You might be used to it but we're still—fucking, _Danny—_that guy has got to pay for what he's done to you! You can't seriously be okay with letting him go on his merry way, right? He's going to come back for you. He's fixated on Phantom, and maybe you too. Don't you—"

"No," Danny says. So, so calmly. "I don't think so. Freakshow won't be coming for me."

"How do you know that?" Sam demands.

Danny takes a long gulp of his cocoa, makes a pleased little hum at the taste of it, sets it down and wraps his twisted hands around the mug before he deigns to answer. "Because I killed him the first chance I got."

Later, Tucker will think, Danny may as well have dropped a bomb in his kitchen.

* * *

_Like I said previously, the majority of this sequel was written during NaNoWriMo. A lot of seat of my pants shit going on. I distinctly recall post-NaNo trying to go back and write a proper chapter/scene that dealt with the fallout of Sam and Tucker hearing Danny had committed one murder (he would have quickly realized how horrified they were at the prospect of him killing Freakshow, so he would have stayed mum on the rest). I also distinctly remember hating every single draft I tried at it, and that I tried an easy half-dozen drafts. Past!anthrop hated apparently every draft enough to delete them all, so I'm afraid we'll be skipping right over some incredibly important characterization and reactions. It's really a shame I never could figure out how Tucker and Sam would react (both together and individually) to the news of their best friend killing a frankly unforgivable man. If I recall, Sam would have been more against it than Tucker, but the how and why of all that morally-gray reactionary stuff as told by the perspective of two teenagers never did come out right._

_Shrugsville. Hope you don't mind the weird jump over to some more Valerie content next chapter! I wasn't kidding when I said she was our deuteragonist._


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: I like how I said this was all going to be quick and dirty edits and here I am rewriting half a chapter because I don't like how melodramatic 2015!me was._

* * *

Valerie goes on patrol nearly every night, eager for an excuse to get out of their dingy little apartment and do something worthwhile with her life. Tonight though, she's less concerned with protecting Amity Park as much as she just wants to burn off some steam. She _needs _a distraction; a ghost to fight, a robbery to stop, _something._ Anything to take her mind off the C she'd gotten on her chemistry project. There'd been a brief fight with a giant ghost fish—_real _salmon don't have teeth that big, what the hell—on her way home today, which made her run late for her shift at the Nasty Burger, which made her dash haphazardly through the house while she changed, which meant she left her backpack dumped out on the countertop, which meant her daddy had seen the grade before she could squirrel it away where he wouldn't ever need to worry about it.

He should have been furious with her. She'd promised to get at least a B since her grade in chemistry's been flagging so badly. He should have shouted, or grounded her, or taken away her phone for a week. _Something. _But he'd just looked at her with weary disappointment and _sighed._ He told her she was so smart, that she was such a good girl, that she could do so much better, that he _knows _she hates working, that he blames himself for not getting that promotion last year, that he's sorry things have been so tough for so long but they _need _to be a team on this, doesn't she understand? And then he'd signed again, like he'd known he'd already lost and there wasn't enough left of himself for fury, and he'd gone to work without punishing her at all.

And _that—_

_That _was so much worse than the yelling or grounding she would have gotten—_should _have gotten—once upon a time.

She knows her daddy knows she's still out hunting ghosts, that she's just about always lying to him, that she's putting her life on the line three or four times a week. Her daddy's a brilliant man; of _course _he knows. He just doesn't know _how _she's doing it anymore. He'd taken away her old suit and all the ghost fighting gear Mr. Masters had supplied her with, taken them to the Fentons to be studied and dismantled or modified with gaudy, _shoddy _Fenton tech that got redistributed out to their stupid kiddy militia. He'd wanted her to join their stupid kiddy militia, to take their laughable defense classes and hide behind jury-rigged shields with Jack Fenton's grinning face stickered all over to hide the duct tape and scuff marks.

But Valerie didn't need to do that in the end. She got to keep fighting right on the front line after all, and since her upgrade she's gotten better with her ghost fighting, gotten smarter, gotten _sly. _And besides, her new suit's as much a part of her now as her own skin. Even if her daddy caught her in the act one day he'll _never _be able to take this away from her again.

Still.

Valerie's not upset, or angry, or pissed off at her daddy or her stupid, shitty project partner who'd dumped the whole thing in her lap before swanning off to flirt with half the basketball team. She's just… _frustrated. _She's _tired._ Can't she just graduate already? What's the point of chemistry or trigonometry when she could be out saving the city from the monsters that go bump in the night? What's the point of playing pretend, of being soft little has-been Valerie Gray, when she'd rather be the battle-hardened badass in sleek black and red armor, cutting ghosts with teeth like scimitars down to size? _That's _who she really is. That's who she _wants _to be. Hunting, defending, protecting. A hero.

(A hero who gets _appreciated _now and then too would be nice, but she's not gonna hold her breath for that one.)

She sighs, banishing her visor with a thought. The cold wind dries her eyes and stings her cheeks, tugging a few strands of her long curls free to whip out behind her as she flies. The bite of late winter saps her exhaustion away, leaves her humming with more energy than any amount of coffee ever could. No sense in thinking about any of that while she's out here. She sets her shoulders and arcs south for Casper High.

She's not expecting to find last night's mystery ghost there. There hasn't been so much as a whisper of anything half as strong as him on her scanner all day. She should be worried; a ghost that can hide itself so completely from her is _way _too powerful to let roam. There's no telling what else Dee might be capable of; not without putting civilians at risk anyway, and that's not a gamble she expects to win cleanly.

But.

_But._

She's worried, sure, but not as much as she _should _be. Because Dee...

Dee had been the first—

—entity?

—sapient creature?

...Person?

—who'd _wanted _to have a conversation with her in...

In too long, if she's honest with herself.

And it _had _been a conversation, a proper give and take of information and jokes and honesty. _Vulnerability. _She hasn't regretted her rare moments of vulnerability in a long time either. She'd...

(Shit. If she can't admit it to herself, who can she admit it to?)

She'd _enjoyed _talking to Dee.

Maybe that's the real reason why she didn't forward her suit's scans of Dee to Mr. Masters like she would have any other ghost. She's gotten to know Mr. Masters well over the years; of _course _he'd be interested in Dee. He'd ask her to bring Dee to him so he could study the strange ghost, and she'd do it without hesitation. She knows too, that she'll never see Dee again if—_when—_she does send her report to Mr. Masters.

Still.

Is it wrong, to want to see Dee one more time before she does the job Mr. Masters expects of her? Is it selfish, to want one more conversation with the strange ghost? To get to know more about him?

She's... curious. Yeah, that's a good word for it. She can admit that much to herself if nobody else—not that anybody's asking, mind. She's never met a ghost quite like Dee. He had every opportunity to attack, had _every _reason to retaliate, yet the worst he did was growl at her some, and he'd only done that after _she'd _fired the first shot. Never mind his blindness; she won't consider that the same handicap she would for a human. He's got all the makings of a predator otherwise; she's got to assume his other senses are superior to make up for what he can't see. Any other ghost she's dealt with half as feral as him would have tried to make pulled pork out of her the second she'd gotten within fifty yards of it.

But he hadn't.

Shouldn't she be worried that he hadn't? That he still didn't seem interested in attacking her after _she _had attacked him? Any other ghost would have out of simple self-defense if nothing else. Dee's an outlier. When it comes to ghosts _every _outlier is dangerous. Look at Plasmius. Look at Phantom. Look at Undergrowth and Nocturne and the Fright Knight. Look at _fucking_ Pariah Dark. Sure, Phantom's gone now, destroyed or hidden away in the GIW's labyrinthine facilities, but the rest? Powerful and clever and cruel to a one—and still _out there._

She'd never beaten any of them one on one. She'd never had a snowball's chance in hell of capturing them, for that matter. The best she ever managed was to get a few good hits in alongside the militia. The best she ever managed was to help push those monsters back into the Ghost Zone before they could do too much damage. Those _things_ are still out there, licking their wounds and biding their time. Hell, some of them have already made repeat appearances. Others she's still anticipating the day they rend the sky with fire and lightning, and she can't decide if she dreads or anticipates those future fights more.

But Dee...

Shit.

She's _curious._ She wants to know—

—more.

She wants to see what makes him tick. She wants to push his buttons. She wants to know just how much of a threat she ought to consider him, even if he doesn't seem interested in hurting anybody. Can't trust a ghost at their word, after all.

Her scanner pings. A level seven, maybe even a smoldering eight. At the football field again. Must be a place he remembers from when he was still alive, a place he remembers well enough to find now that he can't—

Her throat closes up for reasons she doesn't dwell on. She swallows and swoops around Casper High, spotting the white and pale green shape making its way around the track almost immediately. An ethereal flare of unreal light in the otherwise dark field.

He doesn't slow as she swings low, though he's at least paying attention enough to lay his ears back like an irritated dog when she draws near. She hovers watchfully. Warily. Last night he'd seemed keen on playing at human, if not convincing in his attempt. Tonight though, he _prowls _on all fours, hunchbacked and skeletal, neon green spittle hissing as it drips from his jutting fangs to the red rubber track. He walks on his knuckles like a gorilla, gait jerky and wrong-footed like something out of an old video game. Frustration has stripped him of his ghostly fluidity, pressed him into harsh angles.

Valerie knows the feeling.

"Bad day?" She asks glibly.

That earns her a drawn-out growl, deep and thunderous enough to resonate in her diaphragm. Not bad. Not _impressive,_ but still. She gives it a four out of ten on the intimidation tactics scale.

She banishes her board, falling lightly to the springy turf.

So. Dee's grouchy enough to forgo talking, but not angry enough to attack outright. She can work with that.

She keeps the width of the track between them as a precaution, far more familiar with how damn _fast _this ghost is than she'd prefer to be. She walks with him around the curve of the track, keeping her eyes trained on him. Just in case. It's strange, amusing even, to see a ghost bother to touch the ground at all. Even on all fours he's faster than her; it's an effort to keep pace with his skinny frame. Must be a benefit of not having any actual muscles or bones to haul around.

Once they're on the next straightaway she asks, "Do you wanna talk about it?"

Dee stops on a dime, swinging his toothy muzzle toward her. _"What are you doing?"_

His voice is deep, rasping, demanding. Hard to understand, too; unrecognizable to the dry sarcasm and polite hesitance he'd spoken with last night. Teetering on an edge of bladed teeth; the slightest aggravation would push him over.

And really, she should know better by now not to push.

But never let it be said that Valerie Gray is a coward.

She raises an eyebrow habitually, remembers too late he won't see it. "...Talking?"

_"Exactly!"_

Her other eyebrow crawls toward her hairline of its own accord. "And that's a problem because...?"

Dee growls again, tossing his head and rolling his broad shoulders as he stomps on. What, like he really expects her to just leave him here to sulk not even a block away from sleeping humans? He must not know her half as well as he pretended to if he thinks that. "I'm gonna need you to try that again in English."

The next growl cuts off with a grumble like a lawn mower failing to turn over. Visibly restraining himself—from what? Attacking her? Running off?—Dee bites out, "I don't _get _you."

"What's there to get?"

_"This. _You—being friendly with—_me. _A _ghost." _He barks laughter. "Less than that. Some freaky little monster any ghost hunter oughta put down."

She grits her teeth, steels herself for the worst. Just in case. "Is that what you want me to do?"

Dee—

—sighs.

"No," he says, and sounds so, so tired for admitting it. "I don't—ha ha. I dunno why the hell I'm trying to take this out on you. You're the only one around who might actually call my bluff."

Well. That raises some questions, doesn't it?

But.

Better not to push him, not now when he's already so on edge.

Makes sense though, doesn't it? How much he wavers between appearing human and, well, _this._ She wants to ask, but—later. If she gets a chance to anyway. Once she tells Mr. Masters about him there won't be any time for questions. Whenever she does get around to telling him, anyway.

"Don't tempt me," she says, and puts a smile in her voice so he knows she's kidding. It must work, because he snorts.

"I'm not stupid. I know how a fight between you and me would go. Personally speaking, I'm pretty happy not being a green smear on the pavement."

Ghosts don't pay compliments. Ghosts don't admit failure, especially when the fight hasn't even begun. How strange. But is his strangeness dangerous? She has to know. "You sure about that? I bet you've got a few tricks up your sleeve."

He stops, sitting back on his heels. She hadn't noticed while they'd walked but his shape's been shifting; already he has more human proportions, shorter limbs and a less pronounced backwards hook to his legs. She wonders if he can walk on two feet or if that's beyond him, if dying twisted him too much.

A smoldering eight though. There's no telling what he's capable of until he decides to make a show of it.

"Sure," he says, "but I wouldn't bother with any of that with you."

She's tempted to ask him outright, but that's never worked in the past. Ghosts always lie. "What, you already figure out my weakness?"

He chuckles; softly, apologetically. "You're human. That's weakness enough."

Anger—_righteousness—_gets the better of her. "Being human automatically makes me _weak?"_

He shrugs, but there's something defeated about it, like he's tired in a way no ghost she's ever gone toe to toe with would ever show around a potential enemy. "I can take the kind of hits that'd leave those fragile human brains of yours oozing out your ears."

"I'd argue that's because you don't have the brains to spare," she snaps.

He barks laughter and starts walking again. "Wow. Who was dumb enough to piss in your Cheerios today?"

"Nobody," she retorts, and then grimaces. If she wants the truth out of him, it only makes sense to dole out small truths of her own to him too. "Well—me, maybe, if I'm gonna blame anybody."

"Yeah? What happened?"

"I asked you first," she replies, smug.

He bares his teeth at her, but no growl accompanies it before he huffs. "It's... it's been a rough couple of days back, is all."

Mm. Well that's not all that surprising, is it? She makes a face. "I'm gonna repeat myself at the risk of gettin' you all snarly again. Do you wanna talk about it?"

Dee's quiet as they come to the next curve of the track. For a moment Valerie thinks she'll need to say something to keep him from straying onto the grass, but he only veers to the concrete edge before correcting himself.

"I came back to Amity Park for... closure," Dee says, picking his words with care. "You know. Unfinished business. All that junk. I wanted to... say goodbye, I suppose. And there are certain people here, people I used to care about—that I still care about—and they're taking it all so much harder than I ever imagined. I mean, it's not like I was expecting rainbows and unicorns, y'know? It's just..." He sighs. "It's been a lot harder than I thought it'd be."

Valerie—

—hesitates.

It's rare, to come across a ghost native to Amity Park. She's destroyed at least one for sure, and chased a few others back into the Ghost Zone besides. A town as haunted—as dangerous—as here is bound to end up with casualties, and the three-letter agency the Fentons sold their souls to don't seem all that concerned with the odd grisly accident now and then. At least Dee is proving to be one of the more lucid locals.

"Well," she says with feigned disinterest, "What else did you expect?"

He tilts his head, toeing the line between doglike confusion and birdlike focus. Altogether inhuman. "What?"

"I mean, just think about it for a minute. Say I died—"

"I'd rather not." The corners of his mouth curl with private humor, and Valerie smiles too. Check it out, he passed the test.

"Hush! Say I died, and it took me ages to muscle my ghost out of the Ghost Zone back into the real world, and when I finally _did _make it back I didn't look like I did when I was alive. Say I came back and looked like—uh—"

Dee chuckles. "C'mon, Val, don't mince words. It's not your style."

She rolls her eyes. Like he knows her as well as that. "Say I came back looking like _you, _and _you_ seem to know so much about me, so I bet you know who my dad is too, right?"

"I might, yeah."

"Thought so, _stalker."_

"Wh—I am not!"

"Hush!"

He grumbles, as prickly as a cat with wet paws, but lets her continue.

"Imagine how my dad would react if I ended up a ghost."

Dee nods like he doesn't want to, but understands the point of the exercise she's steered him toward. "He'd be devastated. I know. I _know. _It's obvious, when you take a minute to think about it. But—still."

"Still?" She presses.

The corners of his mouth twist so much that his teeth seem to follow the downward pull of his unhappiness. Maybe they do. Logical anatomy doesn't apply to ghosts, after all. "I wish I hadn't come back. They were better off thinking I was dead."

"I hate to break it to you, but you _are _dead."

He makes a show of throwing his head to one side, like he'd be rolling his eyes if he had any. "No shit, Sherlock. You know what I mean."

"I know what you mean," she concedes. "But I think you're wrong."

"Oh yeah? And why's that?"

He's not mad that she's contradicting him. He's not even irritated. He seems genuinely curious to hear her out. What is his _deal?_ "Before you came back, did they know for sure that you'd died?"

Well. That stops him cold, doesn't it?

The last unhappy hunch to his shoulders bleeds away as they come to the next curve of the track. "No," he admits quietly. "But—I've been gone a long time. It was the only logical conclusion."

She can't help but laugh at him for that. "And when has _family _ever been logical?"

He doesn't growl or snap his fangs at her or try to set her on fire. His face flits between frustration and—well, something. There's just not enough expression to discern what he's thinking, all teeth and sharp cheekbones and empty eye sockets. Whatever's running through his mind, it's heavy. "It's—it's not just my family. That's been hard, _really _hard, but I'm handling it. I... I met up with my old friends today."

Is it strange that she winces sympathetically for the ghost beside her rather than the humans he probably terrorized? It _is _too easy to imagine how her old friends—old alliances, bridges burned and the ashes spat on for good measure—would react if they knew she was Amity Park's reviled ghost hunter. It's not that much of a stretch to imagine herself in Dee's shoes—metaphorically—or those of the other local ghosts she's come across. It's terrible. It's terrifying.

"I guess that explains the stomping," she says.

"I wasn't—!" He gnashes his teeth, a rumble deep in his chest. _"Fine._ I was. What do you care?"

"I wanna know what happened."

In the blink of an eye he's off the ground, curling in serpentine circles around her, but he's out of arm's reach before she can make a grab for him. A rifle flashes into existence with a thought; she has it up and trained on him in no time, ready to defend herself—

"Huh," she says after a moment. "Wasn't sure you could do that."

He's standing on two feet. Two normal and proportional feet that are presumably humanoid enough to fit in the white boots he's wearing. He's stood on the turf a few yards off, long arms loose at his sides and his face unreadable. The faint pink light of his sockets seems brighter, or perhaps the rest of him shines a little less than it did.

"You don't," he says quietly. "You don't wanna know."

Now, if _that's _not a red flag if she's ever seen one. Ghosts that clam up instead of boast? There are skeletons buried in this one's closet, and she's not gonna trust anyone else to do the digging that needs doing.

She eases her finger off the trigger, lowering the rifle a little. With ears that big he can probably hear the pounding of her heart, but she can at least keep her voice steady. "Sounds like I oughta insist you tell me. I mean, me being a ghost hunter and you lurking around my city and all."

"Ha ha. Like I'm gonna give you any more ammunition to justify handing me over to Vlad."

She stays quiet. She stays still.

His ears twitch. His head swivels. His claws clack against themselves. Funny, how easy it is to unnerve monsters. How easy it is to find their weakness, to exploit their own deep-rooted fears.

He sighs, any argument he'd been ready to hash out forgotten. "I was—taken. Years ago. The ri—_ha ha._ The man that took me was—was awful. He made me do... he made—me—_this." _A sweeping gesture, disgust roughening his voice. "I wasn't the only one he took either. _Years, _Valerie. He had us all for _years, _made us do—_awful _things. In the end someone else freed me. The very first thing I did was kill the man that took me."

Well.

He gave up more than she'd expected, but the ending isn't any surprise at all. Ghosts like him always get blood on their hands, eventually. She narrows her eyes, deliberating, and takes a risk. "He killed you first, didn't he?"

Dee hisses, long and slow, a memory of breath steaming in the cold night air. "Didn't think you'd see it my way."

"I don't," she snaps. "I'm just wondering why you didn't fly away five minutes after you went ghost."

He laughs, and this time it's raucous and artificial and _loud. _It rings out across the football field, echoing off the bleachers until it sounds like there's a horde of ghosts laughing unseen in the night. She grimaces, gritting her teeth against the shiver that crawls up her spine. She can't play that one off on the cold, but at least he can't see her unease.

"You don't get it!" He shouts once he's finished laughing. His voice is aggressively gleeful, a pantomime of human happiness, exaggerated to the point of mockery. "You weren't there! And you wouldn't believe me if I told you!"

"Try me!"

_"M-i-i-ind contro-o-ol," _he sneers in a high sing-song, waving his long hands theatrically. "He _mind controlled _me! He made me and _a-a-all_ the other ghosts he collected his _puppets, _and we danced to his tune day in and day out because he made us _want _to! Every idle wish, every stupid chore, every dirty deed, he made us _want _to make him _happy _no matter what we might have felt about it when we were still alive! I killed him the _second _I could think for myself again and I don't regret it. I _won't. _I'm _glad _he's gone and I'm _glad _I pulped his ugly face."

And he stands there, hunched and breathing raggedly, ready and waiting for her to attack.

And Valerie—

—dismisses her rifle.

"Now why wouldn't I believe you?" She asks softly. "You were a local, weren't you? You know how crazy this city is."

Check it out, she's left him speechless. There's more than one way to beat a ghost at their own games.

"How'd he do it?" She asks.

Dee's muzzle opens and shuts. "You... you're not gonna believe me that easy. Are you?"

"You already told me you murdered the guy." How he justifies it to himself, well, that doesn't much matter to her or Mr. Masters. But she's curious. She wants to know why, even if it's not what really happened. Ghosts lie, but nobody ever said they were _good _at it. Ghosts, she's learned, are a bit like funhouse mirrors. The truth's always in there, stretched and warped though it may be.

"I... he... used magic," Dee falters. "Or something like it. Didn't really get a chance to question how it worked, y'know? Uh. It—he had this amulet. As long as he wore it I couldn't fight him. None of us could. I didn't even know he had it until—after."

"After you'd killed him."

"Yeah."

No remorse. No hesitation. Simply agreeing with the facts. Jesus.

"He deserved it," Dee says when the silence begins to stretch. "The ringmaster deserved to die."

Guess that joke about the circus last night wasn't a joke after all. Something about that niggles. Why does that sound familiar? Later. Maybe Mr. Masters will know. "Why were you the one who got to make that call?"

Dee's head tilts, wry amusement curling the corners of his muzzle. "Like any cops would've listened to _me."_

"Still. You were just a kid, once. Look at you now. It's no wonder your friends freaked."

He flinches, then _snarls._ "The second I start to bore you or you decide I'm too _dangerous _to let roam you're gonna _destroy _me. You're the same age as me. What's your excuse? How do _you _justify it when _you _kill somebody?"

She purses her lips, counts to five. Just another lie, another head game, digging under her skin looking for a weakness to exploit. He'll have to do better than that. "Who said anything about destroying you?"

He huffs. "Right. You'll just turn me over to _Vlad _instead."

She should. She should notify Mr. Masters _now. _

"I haven't told him about you yet," she says instead.

"You—really? Huh." He crosses his arms over his skinny chest, long fingers curling with too many joints. "Why not?"

Well. Truth for truth, and maybe she'll get a little more honesty out of him instead of a firefight. She'd prefer to not be the one responsible for leveling the school just a few months shy of getting free of the damn place. "You're weird. I wanna know why."

"Wh—" He laughs, baffled. "Is being a _ghost _not enough of an explanation for you?"

_"Please. _I _know _ghosts. I've been fighting them long enough to figure out the general idea, and _you _don't fit it. But if there's one ghost like you there's bound to be more, and I don't like surprises."

"You—you're _using _me? For _data collection?"_

She grins. "Glad you're keepin' up, Dee."

He drops his arms so he can smother his laughter in one long hand, his shoulders shaking. "The _hell—"_ he chokes out. "You're a real piece of work!"

Eh, she's been called worse by things far more interested in finger painting with her entrails. She'll let it slide, this time. "Doesn't sound like you object."

"I—ha ha—what, do I get a vote?"

"No, but it'd be even weirder if you were cool with being studied by a ghost hunter."

Dee closes the distance between them, _way _too fast again, circling her in a boneless smear of eye-watering light and smoke. "Do you plan on telling Vlad about me?"

She doesn't draw a weapon, though instinct shrieks at her to push him back, to take the high ground, to strike before he has a chance to tear her down and _open. _"I... I don't know."

He stops to hover; not quite before her, not quite facing her. Off by inches, because for once logical anatomy _does _apply to ghosts. One ghost, anyway. "I thought you'd hate me."

"I do," she replies automatically. "I hate all ghosts. Doesn't mean I can't be curious too."

"Huh." He sprouts legs—scarecrow skinny but humanoid down to the tattered knees of his white jeans—and lands without a sound. "Tomorrow."

"What?"

"Come back here tomorrow. I'll tell you whatever you wanna hear. Y'know, for data collection."

She has to bite her cheek before answering, glad he can't see her smiling. "Were you on the football team or somethin' when you were alive? What's got you coming back here every night?"

He shrugs like he's embarrassed, but not like he minds it. "It's the only place I've been able to find without getting lost."

Jeez, talk about depressing. You'd think his family or whoever would be out here with him, if they're not so scared of him they haven't notified the militia. "Well, I dunno how much of high school you remember, but I for one could do with a little time away from here. I can show you how to get somewhere else tomorrow, anywhere you like."

His mouth opens wordlessly for a moment before he _cackles._ "Did—did you just offer to take me for _walkies?"_

Shit, and she was doing so good too. Now she's cackling right alongside him. _"N-no! _Oh my god! I was just—if you're gonna be like that, then fine! Offer rescinded."

"Aw, no, c'mon!" He waves his hands apologetically, but he's close enough that Valerie has to take a step back to avoid getting sliced. Fluid as his shape is, you'd think he'd do something about being a glow in the dark Edward Scissorhands. "I was surprised, that's all. Please?"

"Alright," she says. _"Alright. _Just—don't go causing any trouble tomorrow, ghost, or I might go changing my mind about Mister Masters."

His mouth stretches—eesh, yeah, that's teeth and all on that bit of freaky ghost anatomy—in an easy grin. "Pinkie promise," he says, and vanishes.


	9. Chapter 9

_It occurred to me long after I NaNo'd this whole thing that after the Fight That Wasn't post-chapter 8, Danny and his parents really needed to have a talk about Important Future Stuff I'd have to do a fair amount of research on. Things like, y'know, how to report a missing child has come home to the appropriate authorities, and also that child is a little bit dead, and also very much killed the guy that kidnapped him, and also was an unwilling participant in any number of international crimes, and also hey Danny, we think we should take you to several doctors to get looked at because oh my god you look so bad and we as your parents are enormously concerned? Add on that Danny super doesn't want any part of any of that, and in fact doesn't want anyone to know he's home/alive that isn't (to him) strictly necessary, and we've got ourselves a super depressing breakfast argument! So while I never went back and wrote a word of that, y'all can imagine that's how Danny's morning went. Basically, Danny continues to realize all this human shit he's been forcibly removed from for three years? Is all an enormous pain in the ass and frankly he'd like to just exit stage left at the first opportunity, but hey! Guilt!_

_Man. Danny's having such a good time being back home, you guys._

* * *

Sam arrives outside of Fenton Works at a quarter past ten Sunday morning. She doesn't get out of her car once she's parked. With the heater off the frigid chill of late winter seeps into the interior and under her skin in no time, but she ignores it.

Frankly, she's not keen on getting out of the car.

Her hands grip the steering wheel of their own volition, squeezing until her knuckles burn white and aching. Guilt and anger wash over her, a sickly heat that burns her face and sours her stomach. Regret too; a belated, gnawing thing that makes her slouch, and slouch, and curl up like a dead spider until her forehead is pressed to her straining wrists.

She really, _really _doesn't want to get out of the car.

Yesterday had been...

Yesterday shouldn't have been so...

Yesterday had fucking _sucked. _

It had all turned out awful, every last minute of it. From when she'd frightened Danny into declaring his blindness on the stoop to the horribly silent drive from Tucker's back to Fenton Works, Danny simmering so sullenly actual frost had gathered on the dashboard. He hadn't been able to do that before, before he'd been taken, but...

But things have changed.

Things have changed for the _worse, _no matter what angle she tries to look at it all. Sure, Danny's alive. Sure Danny's home. Sure they're all relieved and glad he's back. But is Danny still...?

She doesn't know how to finish that. She only knows she doesn't recognize Danny anymore, and neither does Tucker. She can't even imagine how his parents are handling this. However much or little Danny's told the two of them he's told his parents half as much, and he'd practically ordered her and Tucker mum on the whole _I murdered the sick bastard who kidnapped and mind controlled me, and I'm _**_glad _**_I did it. _

Fuck.

_Fuck. _

She slaps the steering wheel, wincing when her palm stings, and fumbles her seat belt off. Whatever Danny has said or done, it's in the past. She has to treat it as such or she won't be able to do... to do what she _should _do. And what she _should _do right now is get her ass out of her car and march across the street to the house she's lived in more weeks than not ever since Danny went missing. Danny is here, right now, _alive, _and he _needs _them all to be here for him. He _needs _them on his side. He doesn't need judgement. He needs her to be his friend.

Still.

Still, it takes far more effort than it did yesterday to cross the street and climb the half-frozen steps up to the front door of Fenton Works. Today the door doesn't open before she can reach for the handle. Today she stands there, unsure if she's waiting or if she's procrastinating. Either way she stands frozen, watching her breath cloud, a wind whistling down the street that bites her ears and nose raw, the morning too cold to let her stinging eyes water. She's left blinking painfully, gritting her teeth

Danny's eyes are never going to water again. He couldn't cry over what he's done or what's been done to him even if he wanted to.

Fuck.

She squeezes her hands into fists at her sides until her worry-bitten nails dig crescents into her palms. She should've grabbed gloves, but she was too distracted to think of anything half so sensible. Even her parents noticed something was off with her, off enough that her mom barely hesitated at all before asking if she was alright. Her parents have barely bothered to say more than ten words a day to her in... in ages. She doesn't know how long. She doesn't remember when she quit paying them any mind. She doesn't know when their opinions and their punishments and their justified parental worries stopped mattering in the face of the greater good. She doesn't know when the greater good outweighed the grief she once bowed to. She doesn't know when she stopped grieving for her best friend, lost in some alleyway brawl that amounted to nothing more than one grainy two-minute recording and a few glowing splatters of ectoplasm. Danny, gone in the blink of any eye—

Nngh.

If she ever sees Lydia again she's going to take that bitch _apart. _She doesn't care how grateful Danny seems to be now, that Lydia backtracked, that Lydia felt something approximating guilt enough to _blind_ him so he could be free again. Molecule by molecule, Jack Fenton-style. That's a promise she intends to _keep. _

Sam shakes her head, steels her shoulders, and rings the bell twice in quick succession followed by a knock of shave-and-a-haircut. It's the usual bit of militia security, nonsensical since she's got a key and clearance with the hyper-aggressive security system, but it's better to warn Mr. and Mrs. Fenton that she's someone they can trust. Better safe than sorry. She's had a few close calls, startling them after a rough night of ghost hunting. Tucker's got a burn on his shoulder, a complete accident, but it's not likely to fade for years, if it ever does. Ghost hunting weapons tend to hurt humans in unexpected ways.

She steps inside after a brief pause, freezing when she finds Mrs. Fenton just inside. "Oh—!"

Mrs. Fenton looks... _bad. _She looks ten years older than the last time Sam saw her, just last weekend. Her eyes are dull and swallowed up by dark bags badly hidden by makeup, and the smile she musters looks totally, bizarrely wrong. Sam can't figure out why.

"Good morning, Sam," Mrs. Fenton says after a weighty silence. Even her usual mom-brand cheer is worn thin, not that Sam expected anything else. She's just Danny's friend. She can't imagine how Mrs. Fenton feels about the state Danny came home in. She's not sure she wants to try.

"Morning, Missus F," she replies, muscling her own mouth into a grin. The flicker of tension around Mrs. Fenton's eyes is just confirmation that her own acting skills need work. "I, um. I came to pick Danny up."

"Oh. Right. Of course." Mrs. Fenton steps back to give Sam room to come inside and shut the door. "He's upstairs in his old—" Her eyes widen. "—in his room."

Sam pretends not to notice the slip. "Cool. I'll wait for him down here?"

Mrs. Fenton nods stiffly, and they both stand there trying and failing not to notice the tension bearing down on the whole house. It really is a physical weight, for all that nothing's visibly changed in what she can see of the first floor. It just feels... it feels wrong. She doesn't know how.

Well, that's not exactly right. She doesn't know how to phrase how it's wrong, not in a way that won't make guilt settle like a lead weight in her chest. She knows this dread. It's the same cold bite of any hungry ghost haunting someplace it doesn't have any right to call its own.

_That_ hideously uncharitable and unpleasant train of thought is derailed by Mr. Fenton poking his head out of the kitchen, dripping soapy dishwater as he waves. "Heya, Sammy," he says quietly, offering her a wane smile. "Here for Danny?"

"You bet," she replies.

"There's a good friend if I ever saw one." He nods toward the stairs. "S'good for him to get outta the house, I think."

"Don't worry. Tucker and I'll keep him busy." It hurts to smile, but that seems to be enough to assuage Mr. Fenton. Danny must not have mentioned anything to his parents about yesterday. At least that's old, bitterly familiar territory. She'd almost forgotten how the guilty twist of her stomach felt when she had to lie to the nicest, coolest adults she knows.

Behind her Mrs. Fenton says, "Sam," in a carefully neutral voice. Uh oh.

She turns her forced smile on Mrs. Fenton and hopes she's managing something halfway reassuring and carefree. "Yeah?"

"Danny—" Mrs. Fenton pauses, pursing her lips, and that draws attention to just how her face looks off. She'd forgotten to put lipstick on this morning. Sam's known her since middle school and she's _never _seen Mrs. Fenton without lipstick before. Her mouth looks smaller without that usual pop of red. Her whole face looks older, worn, unfamiliar. "Is... Did Danny talk to you two yesterday? About—about what he went through?"

Fuck, if that's not a loaded question.

Sam's tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth, her throat tight. What's safe to say? Danny had sworn them to secrecy about Freakshow. His parents didn't know yet, didn't know Danny had been the one to kill Freakshow, or what Freakshow had made him and the ghosts he'd collected do. Honestly, she's not sure Danny was that honest about all of—of _that_ stuff with them either. He'd faltered a lot, and backtracked more. Danny's never been any good at lying. He'd been trying to justify to them—to her—why he didn't feel an ounce of regret for killing Freakshow by giving them the grisly details, but he actually hadn't been all that detailed in the telling. Like he'd been trying not to scare them off too.

"Uh, yeah. He—I mean, he gave us the gist..."

It had been one thing, when Danny had still been here, to break curfew and drum up lies on the spot about where they'd been and what they'd been doing. They'd been playing at superheroes, after all. It's easy to feel justified when you're saving people from things with teeth like an upended cutlery drawer. This is... this...

Sam doesn't know if she can do this.

"Aw, c'mon, Mom. Don't go grilling Sam for gossip first thing." Danny appears at the top of the stairs—literally, popping into sight without an ounce of awkward guilt on his thin face. Well, he'd said he'd been stuck in ghost mode all that time Freakshow had been controlling him. Using his powers must come as second-nature as breathing to him now. Sam doesn't miss the whole body twitch Mrs. Fenton fails to quell. Mr. Fenton stands in the kitchen doorway, staring up at Danny with his normally jolly face stretched in a rictus grin. They all watch wordlessly as Danny descends the stairs, slow and cautious, his left hand tightly gripping the banister. He's got his sunglasses on again, and he's all in black again too. Sam's starting to feel seriously out-Gothed. Frankly, she's not a fan.

Danny reaches the foot of the stairs and pops his tongue; a startling shock of noise that makes Sam's ears ring. He'd done that yesterday a couple times too, and hadn't said a word about why or what the deal was with that new little habit. With everything else going on she hadn't thought to ask about it. Tucker hadn't either. They'd been... They'd had their hands full.

"Hi, Danny," she says belatedly.

He slings a backpack held together with duct tape and what looks like dirty shoelaces over one shoulder. His grin's practically a threat. Something about it—the crooked curl, the stretch of his scarred mouth over too-pale gums, his stained teeth clenched so tightly his jaw muscles bulge—sets her on edge. She thinks of how a dog might bare its teeth in a mute snarl just before it decides to bite and feels a fresh twist of guilt in her gut over comparing her best friend to an animal. What is wrong with her? "So!" He says brightly. "You all having fun staring at me? Should I go back upstairs and pretend I can't hear you until you've filled each other in on all the freaky gossip?"

Mrs. Fenton looks like she's going to be sick. "Sweetie, no, I didn't mean—"

"It's fine," he interrupts. "I get it. Just don't do it when I'm around, alright? I really wasn't kidding about how good my hearing is."

Sam's eyes skitter between all three Fentons. Mrs. Fenton looks like she's going to be sick. Mr. Fenton looks like he's doing his damnedest not to cry, and like he knows it's a losing battle. Danny looks like—like how he used to look on bad days, their freshman year. Bad grades and too little sleep and the A-listers all being pricks and another midnight ghost beating him black and green and blue; a boy overwhelmed, with no one to turn to but his friends who were even less capable of handling the heap of bullshit he'd been handed than he was. Danny looks _pissed,_ like he's eager for any excuse to take out his anger on anyone or anything that gives him the slightest excuse.

She can't believe she used to think that expression was endearing.

She should say something. Diffuse the miserable tension somehow. Danny's talking like his parents are a couple of irritating strangers he's got to put up with for propriety's sake. Or—no, that's not right. He's talking like _he's _the irritating stranger his parents have to put up with. Like he knows he's an inconvenience and he doesn't know how to dip out without offending them, never mind the relief his absence would bring.

Fuck. This—this isn't_ right. _None of it is. He should be _happy _to be home again, shouldn't he? He shouldn't look like he's desperate for the first excuse to bolt and not look back.

Metaphorically speaking.

Nngh.

"D-Danny!" Mr. Fenton stammers from the kitchen doorway. "You on your way out already?"

"Yeah," Danny replies, not bothering to so much as angle his head towards his father. "I doubt I'll be gone long though. Tucker's parents are due back this afternoon and, well." He shrugs. "I'd like to keep a low profile a bit longer."

"You said," Mr. Fenton replies, dropping the rictus grin and looking all the more weary for it. "Wish you'd tell us why though."

"I will," Danny says. The absence of any excuse or apology practically rings through the house.

"Have fun," Mrs. Fenton says after an awkward pause. Her voice cracks and her face twists in a wince like she's honestly doing everything she can not to cry right there in the entryway. "Call if you need a ride home."

"It's okay," Sam says quickly. "I don't mind driving him, really."

Danny's expression sours further, but he doesn't say anything more than a terse, "Later," before striding past Mrs. Fenton and Sam. He'd done this yesterday too; sudden bursts of movement that are so, so convincing he really can see exactly where he's going. But he fumbles at the door, knocking his knuckles on the wood hard enough to crack a couple of them, taking three tries to get it open. Sam can't see his face, but she can hear his breath seething through his clenched teeth.

"Coming, Sam?" He barks out once the door's open. She startles, and hates herself for flinching. She hates herself more for the relief that Danny can't see it.

"Y-yeah. Sorry." She follows after him, pausing on the doormat to look back at Mr. and Mrs. Fenton as Danny plunges down the stoop stairs like there's something after him. There's a shiny streak of soapy water down the wall where Mr. Fenton's large hand crabs tightly. Mrs. Fenton's unpainted mouth is a white, unhappy slash, her hands crawling up to squeeze her upper arms.

She can't leave them like this, brimming over with worries Danny's uninterested in allaying. They're desperate to help their son, but don't have any idea how to start. Where _do _you start with something like this? "He—Danny's gonna be okay," she falters. The lie is ashes on her tongue, slick and foul. She's gotten out of the habit of lying. She hates that she knows already that it's a lie. "He just... he needs time to adjust."

Mrs. Fenton's pale mouth wobbles in an unconvincing smile. Sam flees after Danny before either of them can say anything.

Danny's stood on the sidewalk outside Fenton Works, tense as piano wire. He holds out his hand without a word as she descends to meet him, and she stares at his scarred hand—at the bits of his fingers missing, and she's still summoning up the courage to ask _what the fuck— _until her brain catches up with the obvious. He doesn't know where she parked. He needs her to guide him.

She takes his chilly hand in hers and leads him to her car parked parked across the street. It isn't until they've both buckled up—Danny only bothering when she prompts him to—that he speaks. In a quiet, apologetic voice he says, "I'm gonna tell them too."

_"When?" _Sam turns the car on and puts it into drive with more force than is strictly necessary. She's _pissed, _alright? She hates this whole stupid, awful situation, but she hates more that there's no obvious way to _fix _it. At least it's a short drive to Tucker's. She's never been any good at reining in her anger in enclosed spaces. "Your parents are worried _sick._ You realize that, right? They don't know what to do because you just _stand _there and talk at them instead of telling them what they need to know!"

She hears the scratch of Danny's nails against his jeans as she waits for a truck to pass before veering into the street. All eight and a half of his nails are cracked and bruised and in need of a trim, unless he managed to find some nail clippers since yesterday. She hasn't asked yet how he hurt his hands so badly. Her throat's closed up every time she tried. Danny scoffs, a scathing growl that makes her feel two feet tall and pisses her off royally even before he retorts, "Oh, because you've been there to listen in and _judge _me for every conversation we've had since I got back? I haven't told them I killed Freakshow yet because they're already fucking _terrified _of me already. I don't need to pile anything else on them."

"They're not—"

_"Please." _She seems him hold up one hand in her peripheral, sees the dark scar eating up his palm. Neon green light spills down his skin like hot wax, thick and pulsing. Sam hastily pinches her nose, the copper-and-citrus reek amplified by the much-abused heater of her car. "You may have told them I was Phantom, but hearing that doesn't compare to _seeing _the proof. I do this?" The energy flares, stinging her eyes harshly enough to leave afterimages when she blinks. Static gathers between her clenched teeth, makes the hair on her nape raise and goosebumps break out all along her skin. "My parents go full deer in the headlights. They're _terrified _of what I might do."

"They're _not—"_

He flaps his other hand at her, counting out fingers as he retorts, "Intangibility, invisibility, flight, even my damn _hearing. _The slightest show of my powers is enough to make them clam up. They don't have any idea how to handle the fact that their son's a _freak." _

Sam scowls at the red light, tamping down the urge to smack the steering wheel again. "They _don't _think that."

He laughs. Gently. Indulgently. Like she's some sticky-fingered kid who's realized two plus two might really equal four. The sickly light in his hand gutters out, leaving a cloying green smoke behind that smells like an electrical fire. She has to swallow the urge to cough. "C'mon Sam, you're smarter than that. I'm as _freaky _as they come, and I worked for a psycho who thought _Freakshow _was a good stage name."

Worked for. _Worked for. _Like he'd just up and decided to run away from home and join the circus all on his own.

"What is _wrong _with you? I would've figured you'd worked out all your unnecessary fucking hostility out yesterday—"

She freezes.

"Ah," Danny says. "Still on that, huh?"

"I—I didn't—"

"You're not the only one, y'know."

"I—what?"

But he doesn't answer. He just sighs quietly, leaning back in the passenger's seat. He pulls his sunglasses off the bridge of his nose so they dangle off his ears and under his chin. He rubs his eyes. The glass prosthetics where his eyes _should _be. In the gray mid-morning light the shadows under his false eyes look dark enough to be painted on. "Nngh," he says. "I'm being an ass again. Sorry. I'm just... Ha. I haven't slept much since I got back. Can we blame me being an ass on that?"

Well, shit. She wants to pick a fight; not for the sake of fighting but for the sake of proving she's right and Danny's in the wrong. But she knows she can be a holy terror after a rough all-nighter. Just because Danny didn't used to be doesn't mean that's not a natural enough thing to have changed. "It's okay," she says grudgingly. "I've been an ass too."

"Maybe, but I deserved it." He angles a smile her way, his hooded eyes way too dark. It's not that his false eyes look artificial. If she didn't know they were fake she doubts she'd notice anything was up with them. It's just that she _knows _the color his eyes ought to be, and so the fact that these fake ones aren't that color are jarring to the point of distraction even when she's only glancing at him while she drives. "Plus, I mean—ha ha. I kinda missed hearing you getting up in arms about something. Even if it's me being more casual about the whole 'killed a dude' thing than you'd like me to be."

Nope. No, Sam isn't _blushing _right now, not even a little bit, because now is a _very bad time _for feelings she thought she'd long since shelved. "Y-yeah, well..." She clears her throat. Better to change the topic. _Definitely _better to change the topic. "So, uh. Can't sleep or don't want to sleep?"

Danny allows the rough segue without comment. "Bit of both, if I'm honest. He only let me sleep a couple hours a week, y'know? I got used to that somewhere along the line, so even though I know I need more I'm kinda, I dunno. Out of the habit of sleep, I guess."

She'd known Danny was hardier in ghost mode. No way not to notice, honestly. He could go longer without food, water, and sleep, and he never seemed as roughed up after a difficult patrol as she and Tucker felt, even on nights he'd been put through the wringer. A normal human would've gone to pieces on just a couple hours of sleep a week in no time. A normal human probably would've died on so little sleep over so long a period. She wants to press, ask more questions, learn the real details of just how terribly Freakshow treated him so she can justify—Danny's word, but true enough—his death. His murder.

Freakshow had been an awful human being. A monstrous person. Sam only ever dug up a fraction of the horrible things Frederich Isak Showenhower had gleefully attached his various names to during his lifetime. Even a handful of those crimes ought to be enough to justify what Danny did. But Sam's never been about justification. She's about_ justice._ Comic book vigilantism and action movie revenge plots aren't real life, never mind how satisfying they might feel as simple, fictional power trips. Just because a man was an undeniably terrible person doesn't mean one of his victims had the right to kill him. Even at her most rebellious, anarchy has never sat well with her.

Maybe it's not her place. Danny's right about one thing, if nothing else. She wasn't_ there. _She didn't see. She didn't experience it. She didn't suffer. She's spent the last three years fighting ghosts, sure, but mostly her life's been the same as any other teenager's; school and homework and bickering with her parents and trying to get a good grasp on the abstract future of the rest of her life. Simple worries, simple fears. She's had close calls with death, sure, but that's no different than anybody else in the militia. Danny...

Nobody's been through what Danny's survived. That much she's sure of.

"So," she says neutrally, rolling her jaw to stretch the tension out of it. "That's the 'can't' answer. Why don't you want to sleep?"

In her periphery she watches Danny slip his sunglasses on again, hiding away his false eyes and the dark shadows circling them. It's a moment before he answers, but he surprises her by answering honestly. "Bad dreams."

Well. She really ought to have expected that. "Do... do you want to talk about it?"

"I... maybe. Soon. I dunno." She hears his nails scratch at his jeans again. "They're not so bad, really. I had worse ones, before. About you, actually."

They're not far from Tucker's. She desperately wishes she'd done the smart thing and stewed in another horrible silence all the way there. She wishes she'd waited so Tucker would have to sit through all this too. "I thought you said you'd forgotten everything. That he made you forget."

"He did. Those dreams were... ha ha. Abstract, I s'pose." _Scratch, scratch, scratch._ She doesn't remember him doing that before. Fidgeting so much. "I used to dream of reaching for something really important to me, but I didn't know what it was, or why it was in danger, or why I was so scared. I picked out details over time. Maybe the repetition of the dreams helped me remember. I dunno. I realized it wasn't an it I was worried about, it was a human, and they were falling. Or it _was _an it, and it was a staff with a red orb. Both of them were so incredibly important to me. I didn't know what I'd do if I didn't save them. Either of them. Both. I dunno."

When she glances over at him his fingers are all tangled together, a wavering grin on his face as his knuckles pop one by one. "After awhile," he goes on, "I knew it was a girl that was falling, but nothing about her. Who she was to me. And I could remember a boy I cared about just as much too. I realized that I'd belonged to Freakshow more than once, but I couldn't remember how I'd gotten free the first time. There wasn't anything I could do. About getting free, or for those humans I remembered, or that staff that wasn't there with us then. I didn't know if I'd caught either of them, or if any of it had been real, or..."

His jaw clamps shut so quick his teeth click together. He doesn't finish that train of thought, or start up another. Sam wants to push, wants to ask, wants all the details he's skimming over out of some misplaced sense of protectiveness. She doesn't want to be protected. She wants to know the truth. But... no. No, not without Tucker. It wouldn't be right to push without Tucker here. Danny's made it clear he hates repeating himself.

"It was real," she says softly. "The first time. I fell off a train while we were going over a canyon. You were holding the staff he was using to control you, but you dropped it to save me."

"Yeah," he says. "I know. I remember now."

"Oh. Right." Of course he remembers that now. The needles Lydia had buried into and burned out of his eyes don't have any effect on his memory now. Is that why he killed Freakshow? To guarantee he'll stay free this time?

She's starting to realize that _why _isn't a question she shouldn't be asking him. Not if her knee-jerk reaction is to think circles around every word he says in petty attempts to justify his justifications.

"What was it like?" She asks instead of the first half dozen questions she thinks of and dismisses. As soon as she says them she wants to snatch the words out of the air and swallow them down again, pretend she hadn't said anything at all. Why the _fuck _can't she stop pushing him?

"What was what like?" There's no edge to his voice at least, no subtle warning that he wants to change the topic or shut up altogether. That has to mean something good, right?

Tucker's house at last. She's not great at parallel parking, so she holds off speaking until she's got it more sorted than not. "Remembering. Remembering all the stuff he'd taken from you. I mean—"

"I know what you mean." No ire to that either. No lashing out. Just interrupting her before she can put her foot in it again. He takes a deep breath, lets it out in a drawn-out sigh through his nose. "it was like... like that first breath after being underwater for a long time. For so long your lungs feel like they're on fire and your eyesight gets spotty. It was like I'd been underwater so long I'd... like I'd forgotten what it felt like to _breathe. _Forgotten I _needed _to breathe. Like I'd forgotten the point of breathing at all." He laughs that same little Freakshow-ish laugh. Chills run up and down Sam's spine._"Shit. _I spent that whole time thinking I was dead. Forget breathing. It was like coming back to_ life."_

Sam's tongue is a dried, dead thing in her mouth, her hands gripping her seat belt so tightly her hands hurt up to her wrists. What do you even _say _to something like that? She pries one hand free to kill the engine instead of speaking.

"Oh," Danny says. "Are we there already?"

"...Yeah."

"Well, what are we sitting around for?" He doesn't bother unbuckling his seat belt, or opening the passenger door for that matter. With a chilling of the air she feels even with her overworked heater he phases through both, bag in tow. Once upon a time he'd look both ways and triple-check with her and Tucker before doing anything half as overt as that. Now, he can't even see if anybody's around to witness his weirdness and he doesn't seem to care at all. Sam watches him through the passenger window as he slings his bag back on, tapping out a rhythm on the duct-taped shoulder strap.

Three years spent thinking he was dead. Of course his powers feel normal to him now. He doesn't feel like a freak for being half-ghost anymore. He feels like a freak for being half_-human._ What must have it been like, to come back from the dead? To realize he'd never been dead at all? How many kinds of fucked up must he feel after all that? How much must he resent her for focusing on the one actual fucking thing he could choose to do after all _that? _

Fuck. Fuck, but she's such a shitheel.

She gets out of the car, barely remembering to lock it. She takes Danny's hand in hers again and pretends it doesn't feel like holding an icicle. It's the least she can do for him.


	10. Chapter 10

_Back to Tucker again, and I do apologize for the wait. I admit that while this project is a lot of fun, it's a bit low on the priority list. However, this spring's gonna be a busy one, so I wanted to push something out. We've definitely reached a point where a lot less of every chapter feels salvageable from the original NaNo draft; I ended up rewriting just about the whole thing this time, and the next chapter will need the same love._

_This still only covers a small portion of most of a day spent at Tucker's again, so while there are quite a number of topics that are likely to come up as Tucker, Sam, and the first Amity Park ghost to find out about Danny all get more comfortable asking him questions, pretty much none of it gets covered. Everyone's so leery of stepping on Danny's toes, so not much is revealed and there is, once again, the frustrating feeling of having painted myself into a corner with the addition of every new character who finds out about Danny._

* * *

Sam texts Tucker way too frickin' early to ask if he'd be cool with her bringing Danny over first thing. He can't even pretend to be fake-pissed about it either, because he's wide awake when his phone goes off. Wide awake, staring at the blinking patterns of LED lights dotted all around his room, a hundred and one Fenton-Foley ghost gadgets stacked in haphazard heaps and tangles of cabling. Wide awake, thinking about Danny and the unyielding blackness he's trying so hard to walk confidently through. Wide awake, recalling how Danny had gotten sick of all the shouting, had tried to storm out of the kitchen, and ended up banging his hip on the counter. He and Sam had both clammed up then, stricken by how his face had gone waxy with fear and fury and _grief._

Later that night that same fear had sunk its irrational teeth deep into Tucker's throat as he'd tried to sleep. He kept—checking. Stupid, stupid, stupid and unbelievably _shitty _of him, but he had to keep _checking _he could still see all the little lights blinking around his room. Every time the night grew too heavy he had to shake himself awake and just—_check—_that his own eyes hadn't up and ghosted on him too.

So. Yeah. Not a great night's sleep. Hence being awake at ass o'clock to see Sam's text. She's the polar opposite of an early bird, so it's a safe bet she didn't get much sleep either. He sends back an affirmative, then when he actually registers the godawful time it is he tacks on: _Don't go over there until eight. Like the EARLIEST eight. And call first like a sane person while you're at it._ All she texts back is a bunch of grumpy emoticons, which means she knows he's right but doesn't want to admit it.

As Tucker drops his phone on his chest his eyes once again find the lights around his room, and once again his stomach tightens with guilt and relief. He's a coward. He's always known he's a coward, and honestly he's never much minded it. It's one of those things you test the edges of when you're one of the front men for a fucking ghost-hunting militia, sure, but knowing when to run away from toothy ghouls the size of minivans to get some backup or bigger guns is what's kept his ass alive. Without Danny here—

And that's a thought of its own, isn't it? How Danny's mouth had thinned every time the militia had come up in passing. It had sprung up not long after Danny had been taken, when all the ghosts threw a party that brought Amity Park not-so-metaphorically to its knees. Tucker had wanted to ask what he thought of it, sure, but he'd shelved that conversation for later. He'd been too busy reeling over how his best friend since kindergarten had sprung up to commit murder when his eyes had still been melting out of his face.

Fuck, but he knows there's no way he would've walked away from—from whatever Danny's survived.

Three years.

A part of him still can't believe it's been three years. Already been? Has finally been? He doesn't know which to phrase it under. The days dragged their feet and the weeks crawled along on their hands and knees, but then one day he blinked and three years had flown right by.

Any angle he looks at it, it's been a hell of a long time. There's no way they can expect things to go back to the way they'd been just because Danny's home. He's different now, so different there might not be enough of him left to—

Tucker cuts that thought short with a grimace. No way he's gonna ride that train of thought to the end of the line at ass o'clock in the morning. He's developed a strict policy of not making any sweeping generalizations about people, places, or dubiously cursed things until he's had at least one cup of coffee. He can pick at that particular mental scab later after another few hours spent with Sam and Danny might improve whatever's festering underneath.

The giddy, wordless _!_ of Danny being home and alive hits him again as he tugs his phone off the charger and hops out of bed. He'd never given up hope of seeing Danny again, one way or another. It felt like a betrayal somehow, to think otherwise, and a denial of how strong Danny was even before the accident. The fact Danny survived some twelve metric tons of bullshit thanks to the likes of Freakshow and Lydia and came home _alive _is worth whatever baggage he might have brought with him.

Like blindness and murder, which for all Tucker knows is the tip of the iceberg.

Ugh.

There's only the first touch of gray seeping in through the windows, but whatever. If he keeps laying there all he'll earn himself is a headache, so he bullies himself downstairs for a passable workout—muscles even Danny can appreciate don't come cheap—then upstairs for a shower, then downstairs again to drum up breakfast. Somewhere in there his stomach woke up and decided scrambled eggs sounded bomb, and there's enough bacon left to make a whole mountain to split between him and Danny. If memory serves that weird vegan bread Sam likes is still good, and he's pretty sure there's raspberries—yup, and they don't look all gross and melty-rotten either. It's not much, but if Sam wants more than that she knows to bring her own meal prep over to desecrate the Foley house with.

He's got his hands full when he hears the front door, so he just hollers, "Kitchen!" over his shoulder and hopes they hear. Not like the smells and sounds wouldn't be obvious clues once they're inside, but—whatever. Just because he's been acing his way through the home ec curriculum since freshman year doesn't mean he's figured out the secret to multitasking without burning shit.

He hears the door open and shut, and a moment later the heavy tread of boots come into the kitchen. "Somebody's busy," Danny remarks lightly. "Lemme guess, you're gonna offer me a twelve-egg omelette and a gallon of orange juice, and if I say no you'll hit me with a frying pan."

He tuts. _"You_ are overestimating my culinary skills, man. It's scrambled eggs, and you're only getting half of what I'm making 'cause I'm starved." He nods at Sam, who's watching Danny make his careful way to the dining table. Oh goody, she looks miserable again. "You eat yet?"

"Yeah," Danny says at the same time Same says, "No." They both twitch a little. Danny rolls his neck so it cracks loudly, Sam flinches outright, and Tucker resigns himself to playing middleman again today. Hey, maybe he'll have better luck today.

Ha, as if.

"Well you're gonna eat some of this anyway—Danny," he clarifies. "Dunno if you noticed but you're way too friggin' skinny. I already got a plate started for you, Sam. It's in the fridge. No OJ, Danny, but I made coffee and there's milk of the normal and horrible varieties."

Danny chuckles, taking the same seat at the dining table as yesterday. "Do I wanna know?"

"It's just almond milk," Sam cuts in, making a point to shoulder-check Tucker on her way to the fridge. He makes exaggerated gagging sounds and earns chuckling from both of them. "What do you want, Danny? I'll get it."

"Coffee, thanks. Black's fine."

Tucker's busy doling out a heap of calories onto two plates, but not too busy to toss an exasperated look Sam's way. "What, to go with the outfit?"

Sam glares at him as Danny says, "Huh? Oh. Funny."

"I'm serious." Still Looking at Sam just so he can make her glare wobble into something that might, if one were feeling generous, be called a smile. "You've out-Goth'd Sam, which is an achievement I hope nobody's handing out awards for at the Skulk 'n' Lurk. If either of you start singing any Nightwish songs we're gonna have a problem."

He turns to deposit the plates on the dining table in time to see Danny's nose wrinkle. "I have no idea who that is."

Instead of overthinking all the other things Danny probably missed out on while kidnapped and mind controlled by a maniacal clown, big and small alike, Tucker fake-glowers at Sam. "Don't you _dare."_

She just rolls her eyes and keeps vegan-buttering her vegan-toast or whatever mysterious vegan-breakfast she's concocting. Just because he ceded some space in the kitchen for her doesn't mean he's actually got any idea what she does with it. "Here you go, man—shit, wait, forks would be useful."

It's a couple more minutes before they're all settled. Today Sam takes the seat across from Danny, leaving Tucker the spoil of choice of the adjacent chairs. He raises an eyebrow at her. She grimaces back. Danny, of course, notices nothing.

"I hope you didn't do all this on my account," Danny says, dancing his fork along his busted knuckles before digging in. Second breakfast or not, he still eats with gusto. Good.

"Quantity, yes, but eggs just sounded good. Want salt or anything?"

"Nah. Thanks."

Sam's staying quiet again, hands wrapped around her coffee mug to warm them. Tucker leaves her be, more interested in his own breakfast and chasing it down with coffee as fast as he can without scalding his tongue. He watches Danny eat; surreptitiously at first, then bolder as he squashes down the guilt of being able to look freely without getting caught because, _well._ He feels the same knee-jerk unease as he did yesterday. Something about Danny is just... _off _in a way he doesn't know how to voice. Sure, he's slouched at the table easily enough, all his weight resting on the elbow of the arm he's not eating with. He doesn't seem tense or angry. If anything he looks twice as bone-tired as Sam does, and he's not even wearing any smudged makeup to excuse the bruising around his eyes. It's not all the black clothes or the earrings or the dumb sunglasses that's putting Tucker on edge. It's not Danny's sunken cheeks and temples or how sharply the tendons stand out on the backs of his hands. It's...

He _knows _Danny's half-ghost. Obviously. But before he was taken, there was nothing overtly ghostly about Danny in human mode to out him, especially once he got a better handle on his powers. He was just... _Danny,_ an average kid who could become a superhero in a bright flash of light, take down the ghost of the week, then change back in time for school. Now though, Tucker finds himself fighting the urge to lean away from his best friend in case—in case of what? Danny wouldn't hurt him. Danny can't even fucking _see _him. But there's this klaxon bell going off in his head that he can't get to shut up. If he could just figure it out—

"You're both awfully quiet this morning," Danny says.

Tucker and Sam duck their heads in unison. Caught in the act.

"S-sorry," Sam stammers. "Just—y'know. Thinking."

"Uh-huh," Danny says. He swaps fork for coffee mug, fumbling only a little for the handle. Steam fogs his sunglasses as he downs half the mug in one go. "Hey, what do you guys look like?"

Tucker looks at Sam, who looks about as depressed by the question as he feels. He loves it when they're on the same page. God. "Uh."

"I remember what you looked like when we were fourteen, but help me out here. I know you've grown your hair out, Sam. Tucker, you're a couple inches taller than me, yeah?"

"I guess so, yeah."

"He's growing his hair out too," Sam says. "It's still pretty short, about as long as yours is, and he's got it in—what's it called? Twists?"

"Yeah," Tucker says. "Sam's got a green stripe in hers. Ghost green."

They go back and forth a bit, trading descriptions that make Danny light up softly, and some of that unease backs off enough that Tucker can almost forget the funny squeeze around his heart. They tease each other a bit but keep it positive overall, and Sam goes the extra mile to describe Danny's parents for him too. She finishes up, then tightens up, then asks, "Anything else you wanna know?"

Danny hums. "Nah, not right now. Thanks though. Really."

"Can I ask you a question?" Tucker hazards. "About when you were—gone?"

"You can ask whatever you like."

Which is another way of saying _go for it, but don't expect shit in return._ Fair enough.

"Can I—I mean, what happened to your hands?"

Sam outright mimes _what the fuck _at him, but come on. There's no way he's gonna sit here and _not _ask Danny about the last three years. He can start with something obvious, can't he?

Danny chuckles, wiggling his chewed up fingers in their direction. "I know, I know, they're ugly. My speedy healing's a lot slower than it used to be, but they used to look worse. My whole pinky was missing for a while there."

_"Dude," _Tucker whispers, appalled.

"Uh-huh. That was a juggling accident. I fucked my thumb up when I was cutting up horse meat for the big cats. That was a hard one to cover up since I bled ectoplasm all over like, fifty pounds of good meat. Broke my fingers a few times with setup and teardown, but those always healed pretty quick." He presents the web of dark scar tissue on his right palm, raised and knotted, clustered thickest at the heel of his thumb. "No idea what I did here, but my whole hand's dead now."

"Dead?" Sam echoes, looking nauseous. Danny answers by cracking his hand _hard _against the table, rattling plates and spilling coffee.

"Numb," he clarifies.

"O-oh."

For a moment, Tucker's glad Danny can't see his expression. He can't even feel guilty for thinking that. It's just... Jesus. He knew he wasn't going to like the answer—there's no good way to spin losing bits of your fingers—but Danny's doing his best to pretend like it's not a big deal. Like, oh whatever, having ghost powers means _minor regeneration, apparently,_ so what's the use of crying over missing fingers?

Maybe it's not a big deal because this isn't the first time he's lost fingers.

Jesus. Okay. That's—Tucker is not physically _capable _of downing the amount of coffee necessary to face that. He firmly skips over wondering just how far Danny's had to test spectral healing or whatever the Fentons are calling it now and decides to keep shoveling the hole he's dug for himself. "Juggling, huh."

"Uh-huh," Danny says, dropping his hands so he can go back to leaning on one elbow and nursing his coffee. "It wasn't all robbery and shit. That stuff just made it easier to get legitimate work in whatever circus or carnival that was hiring."

"We never found any sign of Freakshow or Circus Gothica after Lydia kidnapped you," Sam says, wary.

Danny snorts. "Course not. He was smarter than that. Had to be, to run the kind of scams he loved. Flaunting the truth for a whole crowd of humans who were happy to hand over their wallets to swallow the lie they told themselves so they didn't see the monsters right in front of them. It was just the three of us for ages, and any money he'd squirreled away before I landed him in prison was spent getting us out of the States as quick as possible. Things got easier once he found the medallion. More ghosts under his control meant he could throw his weight around more with any troupe we stayed with. More say in the acts, where we went, how the money was split. Things were better when the ringleaders minded him too."

Well. That klaxon bell is going off again and this time Tucker's 100% on board with it. Danny sounds—wistful. Like for a moment he _is _sorry Freakshow's gone after all, but for all the worst reasons. He sounds like he's gone full-blown Stockholm. Tucker clears his throat. "I don't—"

"Juggling," Danny cuts in, shaking his head a little. "Right. Yeah. Did a lot of stuff outside the big top in the beginning. He didn't let me in on any of the acts until he trusted I wouldn't wriggle out of his control and bail home. It took him a while to really realize just how solid a control on me he really had."

Tucker has to clear his throat to bully his voice into cooperating. "You said yesterday he made you forget everything—"

Whoa, okay, that gets Sam waving her hands in as firm a _shut the fuck up_ as she's ever done at him when she thinks he's about to stick his foot right in it. He shoots a guilty look at Danny and gestures _what'd I do wrong?_ Danny, natch, notices none of this. "Yup. Sam and I were talking about that again on the way over here, actually."

Sam's eyes widen and she crosses her arms in an X. Nuke the subject, pick another. Yeah, well, too bad for her, Tucker's more interested in why she's flipping out while Danny's cool as a cucumber. "Oh yeah? What—"

His cellphone has the _audacity _to go off then. Danny twitches, nearly dropping his mug. Tucker hisses an apology as he goes to mute it, but— "Shit, it's my mom."

"I'm not here," Danny says in a tone that brooks no argument.

"Uh. Right. I'll just... be right back." He ducks out of the dining room and hovers by the coffee table, too agitated to collapse dramatically across the couch as he suffers through another checkup and stern reminder about the list of chores he'd been tasked with before his parents left town. He keeps it quick—too quick, really. He can hear the suspicion growing in his mom's voice, but she's either thinking he's thrown a party or there was an attack that didn't make the news, both of which are so far off it's almost hilarious. _Danny's here_ sits bitterly on his tongue, a secret knocking insistently against his teeth. He's unused to secrets. His parents know the truth about Phantom, and everything that went along with that too. The worst he's lied to them since Lydia took Danny has been about his grades.

_"Short of any surprises we'll be home around three,"_ she says.

"Cool. Look, I gotta go, okay? Sam's over."

He endures some teasing—he _really _wishes both his parents would figure out he and Sam are not and never will be a Thing, but he'll have better luck seeing a ghost pig fly before that happens—promises to take out the trash, and wishes them both a safe trip home. Call finished, he puts his phone on vibrate—Danny had twitched _bad _when it'd rung—and trots back into the dining room with a fake smile on only to stop short in the doorway.

_"Whoa—!_ Hey-y-y, ha. Uh. Danny, what's uh, what're you doing?"

Danny looks exactly as spooked as a blind guy busy juggling three burning balls of ectoplasm ought to, wedged next to the fridge with his shoulders hunched high and his arms moving jerkily. He still manages to raise one eyebrow in a way that makes Tucker feel two inches tall and half as stupid. "What's it _look _like?"

"Let me try that again. _Why?"_

"She asked."

Sam's leaned as far away from Danny as she can be short of abandoning her chair entirely. "I didn't ask for a _demonstration."_

"Would you relax? I'm a pro at this."

Tucker bites down the urge to point out that juggling really seems like the kind of thing that ought to be left to pros who can _see _what they're doing. It doesn't take a genius to know that wouldn't go over well. And, well, Danny certainly seems confident, busted hands and eyes and all. Still. "If you set my kitchen on fire I'm pretty sure my dad will ground me until graduation."

Danny grins as the balls freeze in mid-air, then rush to his palms in a bright flare as he claps his hands. When he brings them apart green light trails in the space between like knotted Christmas lights. He twists his hands and the light bends like hot metal into a fat spiral that vanishes in another flare of light as he presses his hands together. When he brings them apart there's nothing left of his lightshow but a thin green smoke trailing along his fingers. "You don't have to worry, Tuck. I know exactly what I'm—"

He breaks off, inhaling sharply. Very, very slowly, he cranes his head up to look at the ceiling. When he breathes out there's an unmistakable blue mist, something Tucker wasn't sure he'd ever see again. Oh, _shit. _

Sam springs to her feet. "That's—! It's okay, Danny." She holds out her hands placatingly, then seems to realize how pointless that is and drops them. "It's not an attack. Seriously, we're safe. You can sit down while Tucker goes upstairs—"

Danny just grins again, a hungrier thing than before. Then he's _gone _in a burst of speed Tucker forgot he was capable of, bolting up through the ceiling with laughter trailing behind him. Tucker and Sam stare stupidly at each other for a brain-dead eternity—or more accurately three seconds—before it sinks in what just happened.

"Shit," Tucker says.

"Ow," Sam says, pressing fingertips to temples. She shakes it off before Tucker can ask though, bolting for the doorway. "Why didn't you tell him?!"

"Wha—_me? _When would I have had a chance to tell him? _You're _the one driving him around!"

"Not _Danny!"_ She whips around the corner, taking the stairs two at a time. "Forget it. Let's just stop them before they blow your roof off."

Oh, his parents _will _kill him if there's another fight in the house. Tucker hopes, a touch desperate, that Danny's cooled it with the shoot first, ask questions later method of ghost wrangling.

As they hit the second stair landing there's a familiar panicked shriek followed by a crash. Hopefully that wasn't one of the more delicate projects. It's kind of a minefield up in the attic. Never mind, he'll worry about that later. He shoved past Sam to charge up the stairs, coming to a staggered halt as soon as he sees ghost green.

There's Danny, a black paper cutout among all the polished chrome and blinking lights. His posture is all Phantom; shoulders back, head high, pale green light burning in his fists. On the other side of the attic Technus hovers by workbench squeezed between two server racks, a gutted laptop sparking fitfully on the floor.

For a long moment, no one says anything. Tucker knows—_knows—_Danny's going to assume the worst has happened while he was gone. In too many ways he'd be right to think any ghost on this side of the Portal is an enemy, but things aren't as cut and dry as they were when Phantom was here to be the shield nobody realized they needed until after he was taken. There's got to be a way to talk Danny down, to make him listen to Technus, or if not Technus than one of them. He'll listen to one of them.

Won't he?

Technus breaks the silence first, stunned to disbelief. _"Ghost child?"_

"...Technus?"

God, Tucker could kick himself. Of _course _Danny freaked. All he knows is there's a ghost not fifteen feet from him. How could he know it'd be one of the personable ones? At least he doesn't sound like he's going to go in swinging, but then—and Tucker flinches from the thought, but it's _true—_how coordinated in a fight can he be in his condition?

The light in Danny's hands dims to a soft, hardly-there buzz as he takes one cautious step forward. Then another. Technus remains frozen in place. "You're back? You—you're _alive?"_

"I'm honestly getting a little offended by how surprised everybody sounds when they ask me that."

"You—" Technus seems to finally notice Tucker and Sam, shooting them a slightly panicked look. "You _do _know I have an accord with the humans. Don't you?"

"News to me." Danny keeps taking slow, careful steps toward him, hands up at waist-height to feel what his boots might miss.

"I, ah—" Technus clears his throat. His hands sort of flail about, like shooing Danny would've ever worked when he could still see. "W-well, I'm allowed near limitless access to Earth so long as I provide my, ahem, ample expertise in all things technological, assist in defensive actions taken against any invasive or actively malicious spirits and-or entities that wish harm about humankind, and put no effort in developing any malicious plans of my own, theoretical or otherwise."

"Danny—" Tucker dares, but Danny talks right over him.

"Is that so? Sounds like you hit the jackpot." One boot knocks against the edge of a cardboard box brimming over with spare power cables. He hesitates, then steps a few inches to the left. "Does that mean your Ghost Zone privileges have been revoked?"

"N-no, of course not. There are several of us who have opted to make a truce with the humans. There are similar stipulations put to us by the High Council, but..." Technus leans away from Danny's approaching hands, swallowing visibly. "Ghost child... _What _are you doing?"

"Trying to find you. Quit backing up, would ya?"

"What?"

The glow on Danny's hands fades to harmless smoke as his fingers press against Technus' hip. Or whatever's the equivalent on a ghost with no legs, anyway. Technus looks like he'd love nothing more than to put a few hundred feet between himself and his old enemy, but he stays put.

"Danny?" Sam tries. "It really is okay. He's on our side."

Danny hums. "Sides, huh."

Then he hugs Technus.

Wraps his skinny arms right around him, drags him down so they're of the same height, and buries his head in Technus' shoulder. No big whoop. Tucker's jaw definitely doesn't hit the floor or anything.

"Uh," Technus musters after another incredulous pause. His hands twitch feebly over Danny's shoulders, unsure if he ought to reciprocate or face some kind of new Phantom trickery. "What, ah. What is happening right now?"

Tucker shakes his head, just as much at a loss as the dead egotist getting hugged. Beside him he hears Sam whisper very, very quietly, "The _fuck?"_

Danny lets go then, stepping aside so Tucker can catch the gleam of that too-sharp grin again. "I never thought I'd say this, but I _missed _you."

Technus fumbles out a few meek syllables, then looks at Tucker and Sam again. "Is he okay?"

"I have no idea," Tucker says.

"What version are you on now?" Danny asks, blithely ignoring all of them. "I'm guessin' you upgraded again while I've been gone. You've nixed your legs again, huh? And I thought I felt a braid. Did you finally catch on that mullets are out of style?"

"I don't—yes? Jazz, uh, your sister insisted." He coughs, skirting back a few more inches. "I'm—it's 4.3 now."

"A shame I missed three-point-whatever," Danny replies dryly.

Sam pushes past Tucker, tossing an impatient look over her shoulder at him. "No it's not. He looked like a bad Tron cosplayer."

"It was a very durable model, and I'll thank you to remember how difficult a time you all had taking me down," Technus retorts, visibly relieved for even a partial return to normal parameters.

Danny's grin widens as Tucker joins them by the servers. "Now I really wish I'd seen it."

"Ghost child—_Danny," _Technus corrects. "It's, uh. Don't take this the wrong way. While it's good to see you back in one piece again, you are acting _very _strange."

Danny slips his hands into the tatty pocket of his hoodie with an exaggerated shrug. "It's just nice to hear a friendly voice, dude. Grating on the ears, sure, but good to hear all the same. Also I'm blind, so y'know. Wasn't sure who you were at first."

_"You're—what? The great Danny Phantom, defender of the Fenton Portal and of humankind, blind? _This—you're making a joke, aren't you?"

"Nope! So I'm in no way cut out to brawl for old time's sake. If you wanna take a free shot for, I dunno. However our last fight went or whatever, go for it. Well, so long as it's nothin' flashy. I doubt Mister and Missus Foley would appreciate it if we broke their house."

"But—how did you—where have you—what _happened?" _Technus sort of flutters helplessly. Tucker can relate. "Who did this to you?"

Danny is all smiles. Tucker's not the only one who's getting goosebumps about it, right? His teeth _definitely _weren't that sharp downstairs. "A _human."_

"Hey Technus," Tucker jumps in quickly. "You got some time? We can all catch up downstairs, how about it?"

Sam, bless her sometimes, catches on. "Yeah, we were in the middle of breakfast. Don't want it getting cold, do we, Danny?" She knows that look on Technus' weirdly gaunt face as well as he does. He's about three seconds away from awkwardly sticking his metaphorical foot in it with nothing short of aplomb, and with how much they've been accidentally dumping on Danny already, well. Damage control where you can.

"I, er. Yes. I'd be glad to join you," Technus says, sounding anything but.

Danny hums.

* * *

_One thing that won't be covered in the remaining chapters, 1) because it didn't occur to 2015!me and 2) the framework of how this whole thing is written demands that each chapter's narrator be observing Danny through some/most of it, is that Tucker thinks to ask Danny about where, exactly, Freakshow forced him to perform. Danny, more eager than he or Sam would have predicted (for his own reasons), would provide as much of that information as he can remember. Tucker and Technus would work their magic and dig up a worrying number of news articles about missing persons and strange accidents, which is how they realize Freakshow wasn't finding ghosts as they'd assumed. They'd also find a handful of relevant video clips with Danny in them. Nothing huge, maybe one act where they're sure he's one of the acrobats, a glimpse of him in the background of a local news channel interview, and most definitively, one of Danny in heavy makeup snarling in like, broken Estonian that he doesn't want pictures._

_The three of them would come to the conclusion that Freakshow and Lydia killed those people, and in all likelihood not mention any of these details to Danny out of fear of upsetting him. :( It's honestly turned out to be kind of an equal amount of fascinating and frustrating putting this thing together for public consumption, because there's all this stuff we all know and all this stuff Danny remembers better now that his brain isn't scrambled that you all don't, and all the other characters don't want to push him and he's not interested in sharing, so it's this big tangled mess of, well... plot I suppose._

_I have no idea how people stick to it with longfic. This stuff is hard, haha._

_Anyway! Like I said up top, spring will be busy for me. You won't be seeing any DP stuff for a hot minute, but if you're FMA-inclined I did sign up for a couple events so you can expect to see something from me in the next couple of months one way or another. Thank you so much for reading!_


End file.
